A Taste of the Good Life

by Eakin

First published 28th of September, 2013

A down-on-his-luck chef from Manehattan moves to the rural town of Ponyville as part of a get-rich-quick scheme. But he gets a bit more than he bargained for.

Main Course is a successful chef and restaurant owner. Or he was, anyway, until a fire tore up his life's work and left him adrift. When he visits his sister in the rural backwater town of Ponyville, he discovers an abandoned building that's perfect for a quick fix-up so he can flip it for a profit. But the building comes with an unforeseen tenant, and when he lets her stick around he discovers that maybe, just maybe, there's something out there more important than wealth and fame.

When it Rains it Pours

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS

Main Course stood at the edge of a cordoned-off section of a Manehattan street, watching his life burn to the ground.

Fireponies armed with hoses, ladders, and storm clouds did their best to fight back the roaring flames flickering out of the splintered remains of what used to be the front door of his restaurant, The Grassy Knoll. They were clearly outmatched, and though the officer making sure the crowd stayed under control assured him that they were doing everything they could Main Course didn’t miss the way the team’s efforts had shifted from battling the blaze directly to keeping it from spreading to any nearby buildings. They knew a lost cause when they saw one.

A slip of paper, its edge blackened and burned, blew into his chest and caught in his dark blue coat. He pulled it off and glanced at it. The top line read ‘Tonight’s Specials:’ but everything below that was illegible. He looked up, but had to turn his face back down when the ashes that were falling over the crowd like so many snowflakes stung tears from his eyes. There was the sound of breaking glass as the carefully-painted window looking out from the dining room gave way under the heat and shattered. Seeing no reason to keep watching, Main Course turned away from the scene and trotted off after the ambulance.

--------------------

“Well, good morning Grace.”

The green unicorn’s eyes flickered open as she came to. Her hooves reached up and felt the bandages wrapped around her head, spotted in a few places with her blood. Her once-flowing yellow mane was charred and singed in the placed the doctors hadn’t shaved it away. But she was alive. “Main Course? What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” replied Main Course, laying a hoof on his longtime business partner’s foreleg, taking care to avoid the IV line feeding into her veins.

“I came in like usual to start prep work for dinner service. Everything seemed normal, and then I lit the pilot light on the stove and...” she trailed off.

“They’re guessing it was some kind of gas buildup or leak somewhere. They’ll know more once they’ve investigated,” said Main Course. “Still, at least nopony else was there when it happened or things could have been a lot worse.”

“Yeah. So, while they’re investigating, can we still use the rest of the kitchen? I don’t want to have to close down for the whole weekend while they do their thing,” said Grace.

Main Course had to smile a bit at that. Grace couldn’t stand not to open. “I wish it were just a weekend. The fire spread to the dining room, the offices, everywhere.”

“When you say everywhere...”

Main Course sighed. There really wasn’t any easy way to tell her this. “It’s all gone, Grace. Burned right down to the support beams. The Knoll’s gone.”

The screen monitoring Grace’s vitals began to beep faster and more erratically. “What? Gone? No, it can’t be. We finally just figured out what we were doing.” Tears started to stream down her cheeks and her breathing started to get raspy.

“Easy, easy,” cautioned Main Course. “Things’ll work out. This is just a setback, okay? We’re insured. We’ll shut down for a month, take a vacation, then lease a new location and get everything set up again. Hey, think about how nice it’ll be to have a weekend off for the first time in, what, two years? Go home, see if your kids remember your name or not,” he said, hoping his fake confidence was convincing.

Grace smiled through her tears. “Anypony ever tell you that your whole ‘always look on the bright side’ thing is really annoying?”

“Yeah, you might have mentioned it a few thousand times.” He leaned down and gave her a peck on the forehead. “Now brace yourself. Cherry is outside, and he freaked out pretty badly when I told him you’d gotten hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to to hug you hard enough to break a few ribs.”

“I’ll take my chances,” she said. Main Course opened the door to the hospital room and looked down the hall towards the nurses station where a nervous-looking red earth pony was pestering one of the nurses for any information she could give him, and by the looks of it wasn’t getting anywhere.

Main Course waved and caught his attention. “She’s awake,” he called to him. The effect was immediate. Cherry spun away from the nurse mid-sentence and cantered a few steps down the hall, before abandoning dignity and breaking into a full gallop. He skidded to a stop in front of the room, but Main Course held up a hoof to forestall the next question. Instead, he just stepped aside and let Grace wave to him from the bed.

“Grace!” he cried out, lunging forward and, just as Main Course had suspected, wrapping her in a tight hug. “You’re okay! Oh, Princesses, I was so worried when they brought you in and they couldn’t wake you up...”

“Pssh,” said Grace, once Cherry had loosened his group enough that could speak again. “It was just a little explosion. Not that big of a deal.” Still, she was holding onto her husband just as tightly. “Berry and Windy?”

“My mom’s watching them. I can go get them and be back in an hour if you want to see them right away. Or they can spend the night there if you’d rather have some peace and quiet. Or—” his next sentence was cut off as Grace lifted her bruised and cut face up to his and kissed him.

“Just hold me, Cherry.”

They pulled back into their hug as Main Course looked on, a hundred contradictory emotions running through his mind. Then he quietly pulled the privacy curtain around the bed shut and slipped away.

------------------

“What do you mean you aren’t going to pay the claim?” Main Course slammed his hooves down on the claims adjuster's desk, startling the little pegasus seated behind it. A small knick-knack, a paperweight proclaiming that the mare had been awarded ‘Employee of the month’ three years previously, tipped over as the impact shook the desk. He rose up to his full height. He was perfectly happy to use his above-average size to intimidate the other pony into giving him what he deserved.

The pegasus coughed gently into her hooves and trembled a little, but stood her ground. “Mr. Course, if you’d please calm down, that’s not what I said. What I said was we need to allow the police to finish their investigation and then look into the incident ourself to determine our liability.”

“What’s there to determine?” asked Main Course, his voice lowering into a threatening growl as he bit back his frustration. “We paid for fire insurance. I should know; I put the check in the mail every month on the eighth myself. There was a fire. Therefore, you give us the money to rebuild.”

“If only it were so straightforward. Our responsibility is partially or completely mitigated in instances of certain types of... let’s call it foul play. If, for example, there’s evidence that somepony might be attempting to benefit financially from an act of arson—”

“You need to be very, very careful with the rest of that sentence,” said Main Course. “A dear friend of mine was just released after three days in the hospital. She and myself are the two ponies who would ‘benefit financially’ from being paid what we’re owed, so either you’re accusing me of trying to kill her, or you’re accusing her of blowing herself up.”

“I am accusing nopony of anything. This is all standard procedure in these sorts of cases. Our investigators will go over the forensics, if any, as well as your financial records looking for red flags. If anything suspicious comes up, we’ll investigate further. Otherwise we’ll release the funds.” Her gaze softened, and a little bit of sympathy crept into her otherwise carefully neutral expression. “I am sorry, for what it’s worth. I can’t imagine how stressful this has all been for you. Hopefully we’ll be able to get everything squared away and release the funds to you in about six months.”

“Six months?” hissed Main Course, his anger rising all over again. “What the buck am I supposed to do until then?”

“That really isn’t my company’s concern,” said the mare as her face slipped back into the well-practiced dispassionate mask. “I’m afraid my hooves are tied.”

“This is ridiculous. I want to speak to your supervisor, now.”

She picked up a sheaf of papers and tapped the edges on her desk to even them out, unconsciously creating a small barrier between herself and Main Course. “He’ll only tell you the same thing. If I tried to circumvent the rules and pay you without a proper investigation, then I would be fired and you still wouldn’t get your money any more quickly. It’s not like I have the power to write you a check right now without our underwriters signing off.”

“This is crap! You’re all a bunch of worthless scam artists.”

“Sir, please watch your language. If you become threatening or belligerent I’ll have to ask security to remove you from the building. If you think I’m treating you unfairly, you’re welcome to contest my decision.”

Main Course felt a tiny spark of hope. “Of course I want to contest it!”

“Very well,” she said. She did a quick search through her desk drawers and pulled out a thick envelope, bulging at the seams with paperwork. She gave the contents of the pages a cursory glance before sliding the envelope across her desk. “Fill out these forms and return them to us. We’ll let you know the result of the appeal within six to eight weeks.”

Main Course stared down at the papers as the spark was snuffed out, leaving him feeling emptier than before. He got up and turned away from the agent’s desk. “Just forget it,” he said through gritted teeth as he moved to leave.

“Have a nice day, sir. I assure you that we’ll continue to work on your case in an attempt to reach an outcome that’s acceptable to all parties involved.” She frowned as Main Course stopped in her doorway for a moment. “Sir, making that gesture towards me isn’t helping your case.”

----------------------

It was nearly sunset before Main Course returned to his apartment building. He’d taken a long walk to calm down after leaving the insurance company, enduring the cold of of the oncoming winter storm as the seething heat of his anger slowly dissipated with every step. As he walked in past the stoic doorpony holding the entrance open for him, he caught sight of his landlord and friend Rent Control in the lobby, putting on a hat and boots.

“Oh, hey Main. I was just about to leave for the night. Things go okay with your insurance claim?” One look at Main Course’s face, and his hopeful smile fell away. “That looks like a ‘no’ then.”

“It’s going to be months before I see a single bit, and in the meantime I’m unemployed.”

“You going to look for something temporary in the meantime? You’re a damn good cook, I’m sure some other restaurant would be happy to have you,” said Rent Control.

Main Course shook his head, scattering a few snowflakes that had gotten stuck in his light silver mane. “I don’t know. Most places probably aren’t going to want someone who’s going to take off on them in a few months. Which means, uh, we should probably talk about my rent situation?”

Rent Control winced. “Yeah, we probably should. I didn’t want to bring it up, but is that going to be an issue for you?”

“I’ve got some savings. Grace and I were paying ourselves pretty generously out of the Knoll’s profits. Still, I might be looking to downsize, at least for a while.”

“I wish I could let you stay here rent-free, Main, I really do. But I can’t afford that. The penthouse is prime real estate, and I’ve got bills to pay. I don’t really have any other vacant apartments right now that’d save you any money, but I can keep an eye out.” Main Course figured the look on his face must be pretty miserable, given the way Rent was looking at him. “Look, here’s what I can do. Technically, your lease isn’t up for, what, eight months? But if you need to break it, I won’t charge you any penalties or anything like that. I’ve even got some space in the basement if you want to store any extra stuff that won’t fit in a smaller pad. And if you need me to vouch for you with a new landlord, I will. I wish I had more tenants like you. Well, like you but, y'know, employed.”

Main Course chuckled. It wasn’t quite as much as he’d hoped for, but Rent Control’s offer was pretty generous given his circumstances. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Rent Control glanced past him at the storm outside, which was starting to pick up. “No problem. I need to get going before the weather gets any worse or I’m gonna be sleeping in my office again, but drop in anytime you want to talk about it. Or anything else, for that matter.” He walked over to Main Course and reached up to give him an encouraging pat on the back. “And hey! Maybe now that you won’t be working every evening we can finally get you a date!”

Main Course's mind snapped back to the other day in the hospital room. Cherry and Grace had both seemed so content. So at peace despite the near-disaster that had almost separated them permanently. Why didn’t he have somepony like that? “Good night, Rent.”

The cold wind buffeted his back for a moment as Rent Control left for home. With a sigh, Main Course opened his mailbox and pulled out a small stack of bills, as well as an envelope with his sister’s name in the return address. He climbed the five flights of stairs to the top floor and unlocked his front door. As he stepped inside, specially enchanted lanterns lit up automatically, casting light across the spacious, open living room and into the hallway that led down to the bedroom and bathroom. The apartment was sparsely decorated, with an eye towards neutral colors and minimalist functionality rather than spectacle. Considering how little time he spent here, Main Course had never really felt the need to personalize it very much.

When he was home and not sleeping, he tended to hang around his kitchen playing with new recipes and flavor combinations. He dropped the mail on the counter along with the paperwork from the insurance office, which landed with a heavy thud. Most of the mail looked like bills and junk mail, so he dug his sister’s letter out of the pile and carried it over to the living room couch, a bulky white velour thing that had come with the apartment. He grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl on the nearby glass-topped coffee table and began to eat as he read.

Dear big brother,

Heard about the fire. That really sucks. Give my best to Grace. Good luck dealing with the insurance stuff; that can be kind of a nightmare if the company decides to drag their hooves. If you want somepony to send them a letter full of scary-sounding legal jargon, I’m your mare.

Speaking of, I haven’t seen you in forever! If you have some extra time before you’re going to reopen, you should come visit. My extra bedroom’s yours for as long as you want it. I know Ponyville isn’t quite as exciting as Manehattan, but I’m guessing you might be excitemented-out these days. Just something to keep in mind.

Your favorite little sister,
Silver Scroll

Main Course sighed as he reread the letter. It wasn’t the first time Silver Scroll had pestered him to come visit, but it might have been the first time he didn’t have a good reason not to go. The alternative was, what exactly? Sit alone in his apartment with just his thoughts for company until the insurance company sent a check? No thank you.

He walked over to the desk in the corner of the room, facing the picture window that looked out on a beautiful view of the Manehattan skyline. Right now, though, that view was obscured by the whirling snow blowing by, the howling winds occasionally making the pane of glass shudder under an especially strong gust. Main Course pulled out a blank sheet of paper and grabbed a quill between his teeth.

Dear favorite little sister,

Grace is fine, thank goodness. She got out of the hospital today, and she’s talking about teaching a course at the culinary academy for a semester while we wait for the insurance stuff to go through. I guess she used to work with somepony who’s been begging her to come be a guest instructor for some time now, and this is as good a time as any.

I think a vacation is a great idea. I’d love to come see Ponyville. How’s this weekend sound? I’ll be on the first train Saturday morning. See you soon!

Your big brother,
Main Course

Skimming the letter for any spelling errors or other mistakes, Main Course stuck the note into a fresh envelope, addressed it, and carried it out to the hallway where a letter drop ran down all five floors into an outgoing mailbox for the whole building. He opened the mail slot, but hesitated. From what little he knew of Ponyville, it sounded like an awfully dull and backwater little town, though Silver Scroll swore up and down that it was a surprisingly eventful place given its size.

He shrugged. What did he really have to lose? He slid the letter into the mail drop and listened as it fluttered down to the ground floor before he let the flap close over the slot again. No going back now.

“Ponyville, here I come.”

A Dull Little Backwater Town

A DULL LITTLE BACKWATER TOWN

Main Course stepped off the train and into the morning sun. The train had been almost empty coming out, and as he looked out from the station’s single platform he was pretty sure he could guess why. When he’d left Manehattan the streets had been bustling, and that had been hours ago. Here, even well into the morning there were only a few ponies wandering about.

“Main Course!”

He turned towards the sound of the voice. There at the edge of the platform was a pink pegasus mare, with the same silver mane as his though hers was wrapped up in a loose bun. As she bounced up and down waving to him, the black horn-rimmed glasses she always wore were knocked slightly askew. As he trotted over to her she stopped to adjust them. “Hey, Silver Scroll.”

She rushed over and slammed into him, knocking over his suitcase as she wrapped him up in a hug. “Don’t you ‘hey’ me. Give your sister a hug, damn it.” Main Course grinned and did just that. “So,” she said as she let go of him, “let’s get the depressing stuff out of the way first. How bad was the damage from the fire? Give it to me straight.”

He sighed. “Total loss. Everything inside was destroyed, and it starting to look like they might have to tear down the whole building.”

“You never even finished paying off the business loan on the place, did you?”

“Nope. We still owe the bank something like 150,000 bits on a pile of ash.”

“Wow, that sounds awful,” she said, much too cheerfully. Main Course braced himself for what he knew was coming next. “I forget, who was it that wanted to use their own assets as collateral for that loan?”

“That’d be me,” said Main Course.

“Mmhmm.” Silver Scroll tapped her chin. “And remind me, who convinced you that forming a limited liability corporation to own the restaurant would protect you from, say, the bank coming after your personal assets if the place went belly up?”

“That was you, Silver Scroll.”

“So, basically, my legal superpowers totally saved your stupid plot. Would that be fair to say?”

“You aren’t planning on letting me forget that, are you?”

“Maybe in a couple decades, if I’m feeling charitable. You turned the insurance paperwork over to the bank like I told you to?”

“Day before yesterday.”

“Great! Then there’s nothing to do but sit back and let the two of them duke it out. It might take a while, but trust me when I say that they’re way better at dealing with that kind of thing than you would be.” She gave him a friendly, if slightly condescending, pat on the shoulder. “In the meantime, let me give you the grand tour of Ponyville.”

----------------------

It wasn’t even noon by the time the poorly-named ‘grand tour’ came to an end. “Color me underwhelmed,” said Main Course as they stepped inside Silver Scroll’s house.

“What? It’s great here. You’re just too much of a city boy to appreciate a little peace and quiet once in awhile. It isn’t Manehattan, but come on. It has its own rustic charm. We even have our very own Princess who lives in the library. Top that.”

That gave Main Course pause. He’d read about the coronation in the newspapers, but it hadn’t ever struck him as something that would have an impact on his daily life. If a Princess thought this place was worthwhile, maybe he could let his first impressions slide. Hey, maybe he could even find some excuse to cook for her. A Princess’ endorsement would go a long way towards drumming up business after they reopened the—

“Hello? Equestria to Main Course,” said Silver Scroll. “You kinda drifted off on me there.”

“Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I was just thinking.”

She rolled her eyes. “About The Grassy Knoll, I bet. Since that’s the only thing you ever seem to think about.”

“That isn’t true,” said Main Course with a frown. “Running a restaurant is a lot of work. I have to think about it a lot or the place falls apart around me.”

“News flash. Right now the business you’re so preoccupied with running is a pile of cinders,” she said. Main Course opened his mouth to protest, but Silver Scroll put a hoof under his chin and closed it before he could get any words out. “Sorry to put it so harshly, but my point is that worrying all the time won’t bring it back any faster. Try living in the moment for the next few days. Now, aren’t you going to compliment me on how nice my house is?”

Main Course realized that he hadn’t even been paying attention since he walked in. He took a quick look around and nearly brought a foreleg up to shield his eyes as they registered the eye-searing decor around him. “It’s... really pink.” Not just any pink, either. The couch, loveseat, carpet, and the walls were all the brightest pastel pink color Main Course could imagine. A lone wooden end table with a dark-stained finish was the one holdout, struggling valiantly but uselessly to restore sanity to the room.

“What’s wrong with pink?” she asked.

“Nothing, but that’s a lot of it. It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it?”

“Is it? I guess I’m just used to it. Your room is tamer. Only the bedspread is pink. Well, the bedspread and the lamp. Well, the bedspread, the lamp, and the curtains. Come to think of it, it really isn’t much tamer at all.”

“First thing tomorrow, we’re buying you some throw pillows or something. In a color that isn’t pink.” He tried to look directly at the pink expanse that his mind had given up trying to distinguish in any detail beyond ‘yeah, that’s pink,’ for no other detail could possibly be relevant in comparison to the magnitude of its pinkness. “Or maybe this afternoon, even.”

Silver Scroll made a grumpy, disapproving sigh at the assessment. “Well, I like it.”

“You’re weird, sis.” Whatever she was about to say in reply was cut off by a loud gurgling sound coming from his stomach. “Wow, I’m starving. Anything good to eat around here?”

Silver Scroll perked right up at the change of topic. “Yeah! I could go for lunch too. I’ll take you to the best little cafe in town. Everypony loves it there.”

------------------

“Wow. I don’t love this,” said Main Course, two bites into his lily-and-rosebud sandwich. “Like, I really don’t love this. At all.”

Silver Scroll glared at him from across the table. “Well, my soup is delicious.”

“Mind if I try? Trade you a bite of my sandwich.”

“Deal,” she said and pushed her bowl towards him and took a big bite of his sandwich in exchange. “What are you complaining about? This tastes fine.”

Main Course took a spoonful of soup and swished it around his mouth, his practiced tongue searching for the taste of each ingredient a good minestrone should have. He swallowed and made a face. “Way too salty. And like you said, the food is fine. Nopony deserves to pay the sort of prices they’re charging here for ‘fine.’ Any amateur could throw a better sandwich together in their kitchen, in half the time they’d wait for it here and for way less money.”

“Look around. I don’t see anypony else complaining. Sorry if the food isn’t good enough for your delicate palate.”

“Only because they probably don’t know any better.”

“Oh, yeah. They live way out in the sticks, so they must be stupid, right? Not like you sophisticated city ponies.”

“That’s not what I said,” protested Main Course.

“No. It’s just what you meant.” Silver Scroll took her napkin off her lap and threw it down on the tabletop. “I lost my appetite. Enjoy your stupid not-good-enough meal. Or don’t, I don’t care.” She stood up and marched out of the cafe, leaving a stunned Main Course in her wake.

He fished some bits out of his coin sack and dropped them on the table before chasing after her. “Silver, what’s wrong? What did I do?”

Silver Scroll glanced at the ponies on either side of her, then flicked a wing towards the alleyway that ran alongside the cafe. She trotted over with Main Course following, stopping a few lengths into the alley and wheeling around, rage painted across her face. “What’s with the attitude, huh? Ever since you got here you’ve done nothing but complain about the town and the ponies who live here. Well guess what? I’m one of the ponies who live here, and I love this town. I’m trying to show you what’s special about it, but you’re so wrapped up in your own preconceptions and the stupid bucking Knoll that you won’t even look.”

Main Course’s first inclination was to tell Silver she didn’t know what she was talking about. But then he tried to think back to the way he’d been acting since he got off the train. Maybe his sister had a point. “I guess maybe I have been kind of a jerk. I’m sorry, Silver, and I certainly didn’t mean any of it to be a slight against you. He walked over and put a foreleg around her shoulders. “How’d you get to be so much smarter than me, anyway?”

She grinned through her tears. “Wasn’t hard, since you try as hard as you can to be such an idiot.”

“How can I make it up to you?”

“You could say that my town is nice, and that my house isn’t too pink.”

Main Course smiled and ran a hoof up and down her side. “This town is pretty nice, I just haven’t gotten used to it yet. But I’m standing my ground on the pink thing. That’s pretty bad.”

She groaned and sank to the ground, covering her face with her wings. “I know. I can’t figure out how I missed seeing it before you pointed it out, or what I was thinking when I put it together.”

“We’ll figure something out. Now come on, let’s go pick up some ingredients at the market and I’ll make us some real food at home.

Silver Scroll dried her tears and nodded, trotting down the alley. Emerging out the other side, the two siblings hung a left and took a circuitous route around the residential section of town. Silver pointed out the homes of several of her friends, and it didn’t escape Main Course’s notice that she described quite a few of them using synonyms for ‘cute’ and ‘single.’ They had almost reached the marketplace itself when one particular building caught his eye.

It was dirty, run down, and clearly in poor repair. The small front yard was overgrown with thorns and weeds, and the broken windows were boarded up. If Main Course made his guess, it had once been painted green but now was worn down to the bare wood. A mailbox on a post only barely stuck out of the tall grass that obscured the path leading up to the front door. “What’s the deal with this place?” asked Main Course.

“Hmm? That place? Well, that’s basically ‘Exhibit A’ of why nopony opens new restaurants around here anymore. That’s the last place that tried. The owner ran it for six months, then two years ago he vanished. The Guard came sniffing around about a week after he left town, so he might have been up to something, but I don’t really know the whole story. It’s condemned, and they would have torn it down a year ago except nopony can agree who should pay for the demolition. Now c’mon. I want to get to the market before the Apple family cart runs dry. You have got to try these apples.”

Main Course didn’t move from the spot. He just stared at the abandoned house. “Do you think anypony would mind if I took a glance inside?”

Silver Scroll looked back at him like he was crazy, which, upon reflection, wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion. “You want to go inside the broken down, condemned building nopony’s touched for a year? You do know what ‘condemned’ means, right? It means ‘we’re gonna knock this down before it kills somepony who’s stupid enough to say things like ‘Do you think anypony would mind if I took a glance inside?’”

“You can wait out here. I’ll be right back,” said Main Course. With a rustle, he disappeared into the grass.

“Main! Main Course, get back here!” Silver Scroll called after him and stamped her hoof against the sidewalk. When nopony answered, she muttered something under her breath that their mother would not be happy if she overheard and followed him. She caught up at the front door, where Main Course was fiddling with the doorknob through the yellow ‘CAUTION!’ tape that was crossed over it. “Are you insane?”

“Oh, where’s your sense of adventure? It’ll be like when we explored the old cave in the woods behind our house as foals.”

“I broke my leg in that cave,” said Silver Scroll.

“Fine, bad example.” The knob clicked and the door creaked as it opened into a dusty foyer. Main Course ducked under the tape and Silver Scroll followed, still muttering. Inside, the only light came from the dirty windows, giving the whole room a gloomy atmosphere of deep shadows despite the brightness outside.

Silver Scroll reached a wing out to touch Main Course’s back, just reassuring herself he was really there. “I really don’t like this, Main.”

“What do you think is upstairs?” he asked, too wrapped up in his curiosity to heed her concern.

“Living space, probably. I’ll pull a floorplan from Town Hall for you to look at, let’s just go.”

“Lemme take a quick look,” he said. He put his weight on the first step of the staircase, and there was a threatening creak and the sound of wood breaking. He cautiously backed off. “Actually, I want to check out the kitchen and dining area first.” The two cautiously stepped through a nearby archway and Main Course gasped. Beyond it was a huge room, far bigger than he would have expected from the building’s front. Based on the overturned and cracked tables, it had clearly been the main dining room. “Whoa. You could seat a hundred ponies in here.”

“Yeah, if they don’t mind eating in a disaster zone,” mumbled Silver Scroll, but her protests were losing their bite. She couldn’t deny that the place might have a certain charm beneath the grunge.

“And here’s the kitchen,” said Main Course as he looked through the wide open service window. “It looks like the doorway’s blocked. Help me up over the counter.”

“Just for the record, you’re going to get hurt if we keep going. And while I love you dearly, I’m still going to laugh at you and say ‘I told you so.’”

“Duly noted. Now boost.”

Silver Scroll braced Main Course’s hind leg with her hooves and lifted as he pushed off, his momentum carrying him a little farther over the counter than he’d planned. He landed on the hard tile floor with a thud and a grunt.

“I told you so.”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” said Main Course as he rose to his hooves and examined the kitchen. His eyes lit up as he spotted the oven in the corner. “Whoa! A Beaklicker 3500!”

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” asked Silver Scroll from the other room.

“It’s an oven. They don’t even make them here in Equestria, you have to import them. Bit of an older model, but reliable.” He fiddled with the knobs, and his ears perked up at the familiar hissing sound. “Hey, the gas is still hooked up too.”

“Are you insane? Don’t turn on the gas!”

Main Course just twisted the controls back to ‘OFF’ and moved over to the sink. Turning the knobs, the faucet let out a sickly gurgling for several seconds before it began to vomit out brown, sludgy water. “Pipes must be rusted.” He leaned against the countertop, which let out a creak of protest but held his weight, and looked around. He saw decay. He saw neglect. He saw at least four major building code violations. He saw black spots on the drywall that were almost certainly mold.

More than anything else, though, he saw potential.

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” he said as he used a piece of rubble that had fallen from the ceiling some time ago as a stepping stone to boost him back through the service window.

“About time,” said Silver Scroll as she caught him and helped lower him on the other side. She took one look at him and groaned.

“What?”

“You’re making that face.”

“I’m not making any face. What face?”

“Your ‘I have an idea that isn’t as clever as I think it is’ face.”

Main Course scoffed a bit too loudly. “That’s not a face. I don’t make a face like that.”

“If you say so. Can we just go?”

In response, Main Course turned and left the way they came in, carefully studying the damaged building around them. He stepped carefully over the caution tape at the front entrance, and helped Silver Scroll do the same. “So, um, Silver...” he began, trying to choose his words as carefully as he could while they pushed through the overgrown vegetation, “...how hard would it be for you to get me an appointment to talk to the mayor? I’ll owe you one.”

She sighed as they emerged on the street in front of the abandoned building. “Celestia preserve me. You do have an idea.”

“It’s a good one, I promise.”

“I guarantee it isn’t.”

“It so is.”

“It so isn’t.”

They continued squabbling as they walked down the street, and consequently neither of them glanced back at the house they’d just broken into. If they had, one of them might have noticed the silhouette that appeared in the second story window, and a few minutes later vanished just as quickly.

------------------

“I’ve mentioned that this is a terrible idea, right?” asked Silver Scroll as she sank a bit lower in her chair. She glanced around the office waiting room to see if anypony was listening, but all the other ponies waiting there seemed absorbed in their own thoughts and troubles.

“For the last time, I know what I’m doing,” said Main Course from next to her, not bothering to look up from the outdated magazine he was reading as he did.

“Sure. Why not. There’s a first time for everything, after all.”

Main Course had just opened his mouth to protest when another voice rang out through the waiting room. “Main Course and Silver Scroll? Mayor Mare is ready for you now.”

“Guess that’s our cue,” said Main Course, folding up his reading material and rising from his seat.

Main Course could almost hear Silver Scroll biting her tongue as the secretary led them into the Mayor’s office. He would have smiled at his sister’s self-evident discomfort if he didn’t need to project a no-nonsense attitude to get away with this.

“Silver Scroll! Wonderful to see you again,” said Mayor Mare as they walked into her office. The walls were covered in photographs. Mayor Mare at some ancient ribbon-cutting ceremony. Mayor Mare in an action pose, directing the Guard on the fateful night of Nightmare Moon’s return. Mayor Mare shaking hooves with Princess Celestia and beaming at the camera. The common theme of all the picture was clear. “It’s been too long.” The Mayor got to her hooves and planted fake kisses on each of her cheeks.

“Of course, Mayor. I’d like to introduce my brother Main Course. He’s from Manehattan.”

“Manehattan! What a wonderful city. A pleasure to meet you,” said Mayor Mare. “So how can I help you today?” she asked as she settled back into her seat, her forelegs crossed.

“Well,” Main Course began, “I wanted to speak to you about that one building on Rockefilly Street. The abandoned one.”

Mayor Mare chuckled. “Oh, that old thing? I assure you, we’re about to tear it down. There have been a few... complications along the way, but I assure you they’re nearly resolved.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” said Main Course, “because I came here today to acquire it.”

A long silence fell over the room before Mayor Mare let out a chuckle, somehow less gleeful than her earlier gestures. “That deathtrap? You’ll forgive me for asking why you’d want it?”

“Why else? To fix it up and make it into what it was originally intended to be. A restaurant for the citizens of Ponyville,” said Main Course.

He’d expected the Mayor to laugh again, but she didn’t. She steepled her hooves and glared at him instead. “The property was abandoned some time ago, and any pony claiming it would owe sizable back taxes. 50,000 bits, roughly.”

Silver Scroll went pale at the number, but Main Course just laughed aloud. “What, is that all?”

The Mayor turned to him, a quizzical expression on her face. “You have so much money onhoof that the sum seems minor to you?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I don’t have that kind of cash to burn. I was just wondering, since you’re talking about charges that nopony will ever pay you for that beaten-down piece of crap, why wouldn’t you aim higher? Say that the back taxes were a million bajillion bits, you’re just as likely to find a buyer at that price as at 50,000.”

“I assure you, the figure was reached by a fair calculation of the market—”

“I’ll give you five thousand,” said Main Course, cutting her off.

The Mayor studied him carefully for several seconds, while Main Course leaned back and Silver Scroll tightened her grip on the armrests of her chair. “That would not cover the debt the previous owner accumulated.”

“So? You aren’t talking to the previous owner. You’re talking to me. I’m offering you five grand for the property with a clean slate. If you want to go after the other stallion for the 45,000 difference then knock yourself out. It doesn’t concern me. Give me one year, and I’ll turn the place around.”

“It seems to me that I’d be taking a rather large hit if I allowed that transaction to go through. I’m owed 50,000,” said Mayor Mare.

“If you had any way to collect that debt, you would have by now,” said Main Course. “The way I see it, there are three possibilities: First possibility, you reject my offer. You’re on the hook for the cost of tearing the building down, you get no revenues from anypony, and you have to find somepony to care for the open lot or let it grow wild. Second possibility, you accept my offer and I fail. You get 5,000 bits up front, and if I haven’t improved the property to your satisfaction within a year, I’ll hoof it over to you. Cleaned up, with whatever improvements I’ve managed to make. You risk nothing. All it’ll take is, say a majority vote at a Town Hall meeting? That doesn’t seem so onerous, does it?” He leaned back in his chair, and matched the Mayor’s gaze. The office went quiet for several minutes, and Silver Scroll squirmed in her chair.

The Mayor broke the silence first. “You said three possibilities.”

Main Course suppressed a grin. He was the only pony in the room that knew he had already won. “Third possibility, I pull this off. I build a successful business from a pile of junk. You look like a visionary for believing in me. Everypony’s property value goes up. Your tax revenues are that much stronger next year and every year thereafter while my business lasts.” He spread his hooves in from of himself and shrugged. “Seems to me that it’s a wash, a win, or a win for you, respectively. I’m the one taking the risk.”

The clock on the wall ticked away for several seconds longer, and Mayor Mare started to giggle. Then her giggle turned into a deep-throated laugh. “Oh, my goodness,” she said wiping a tear from her eye. “I have an uncle from Manehattan, but I’ll admit that I forgot just how... direct... you city folk could be. I must also admit it’s refreshing.”

Silver Scroll gaped across the desk. “So... does that mean...”

“Five thousand bits, deposited with a city clerk within the next three days and not a second later. No checks, no credit, just cash. You want to throw yourself into that money pit? Knock yourself out.” She grinned at Main Course in a way that made him a little less sure that his victory had been quite as complete as he’d thought. “So, just out of curiousity, what’s this restaurant of yours going to be called?”

Main Course gulped. “The Grassy Knoll, Mayor Mare.”

“Well then,” she replied with a wicked grin. “I wish you only the best of luck, Mr. Course. I expect you’ll need it.”

Buy One Get One

BUY ONE GET ONE

Main Course looked up at the wreck of a building he’d just purchased, and for the first time regretted it.

He closed his eyes, and remembered his conversation with Grace a few days before when he'd returned to Manehatten for supplies:

“Were you high? Or were you just being stupid?”

“Grace, come on. This is all on me, I swear. The mayor told me she’s received the funds I sent. She sold me the entire building for less than what I pay in rent for one month. Even if this flops, I’ll still have spent less than if I lounged around my apartment until the insurance check comes.”

“I’m not worried about you failing. But what if the insurance money comes through next month, huh? I need to know that you’d be willing to walk away from this Ponyville side project of yours.”

“Of course I will. I mean, five thousand bits plus whatever I have to put into it to get it up to snuff? That’s chump change compared to what we’ll earn once we get back on track. This isn’t my top priority. You don’t think I actually care about it, right? But look at the potential upside. If I can get six months to work on it I can get it into decent enough shape that we can convince somepony with more money than sense to buy it out from under me. There’s always somepony who thinks that owning a restaurant is just a fun hobby, and we can price it to move while still making a huge return.”

“Yeah, and then it’ll take about three months for them to run the place into the ground.”

“So? I’ll make sure they change the name when they buy it, and then we can put the money they give us into making the real Knoll even better. This is a good investment, Grace, I’m sure of it.”

It was a great plan on paper, but then again on paper the stupefying amount of work that needed to be done was just a list of bullet points. He’d spent the first few days puttering around in the yard, pulling the weeds and dead plants. Slowly but surely a clear path to the front door emerged, but he’d hardly set hoof inside since ‘winning’ his prize.

“Just realizing that this was a terrible idea?”

There was only one pony that could be. “Silver, this isn’t a great time.”

“Oh, shush. I’m here to help you,” she said. He turned around just in time to see her unhitch herself from the cart she’d dragged here with several other ponies.

“Who are these?” asked Main Course.

“Friends. Thought you might need a helping hoof,” she replied. “This is Applejack and her brother Big Macintosh.” Main Course looked up at the stallion who was even larger than he was.

“Hi there, my name’s Main Course,” he said, extending his hoof.

“Eeyup,” was all the stallion said.

Instead, his hoof was snatched up and shaken vigorously by the orange mare in front of him. “Howdy! Welcome to Ponyville. Mighty brave of you to buy this place up and try to make a go of it. Y’er either a lot smarter or a lot dumber than you look.”

“Uh, thanks?” he said hesitantly.

“It’s great of ya to try to bring some Manehattan cookin’ here to Ponyville. Used to live there myself, in fact.” She finally released his hoof, which had gone numb. “Still, you know what helps a place like this stand out? A unique menu, and more importantly fresh, local ingredients.”

“Stand out from what?” asked Main Course. “There are only a few other places to eat here in town.”

“Just... stand out in ponies’ minds, generally,” said Applejack. “Ah mentioned fresh, local ingredients, didn’t ah?”

“Wait, you two are the apple farmers Silver Scroll told me about, aren’t you?” The mare’s eagerness to volunteer suddenly made a great deal more sense.

“Sure as sugar, we are. And not just any apples. The sweetest, ripest, juiciest apples in all of Equestria. Ah think this here is the beginnin’ of a beautiful partnership.”

Silver Scroll left for her own job and the trio went to work hauling out broken furniture and rubble. Applejack was an endless source of interesting information about the many virtues of her crop, and after an hour or so Main Course learned to tune it out. He resigned himself to purchasing at least a couple bushels. It would be a small price to pay for their help, and he could toss a waldorf salad or something onto his planned menu without too much trouble.

“...and did you know that, technically, apples are members of the rose family? So in a way, they’re kinda romantic too.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah sure,” said Main Course. He’d been distracted by the dark clouds that the weather team were pushing into position. “Is there a storm scheduled for tonight?”

“Eeyup,” said Big Mac, one of only a hoof full of words he’d managed to get in edgewise throughout the afternoon. “Starts in about an hour. Gonna be snowed under pretty good for the next couple days.”

Main Course frowned. He’d just started making progress, the last thing he needed was to lose a couple days of work to a storm. “I guess I’ll stay here tonight, then. If I’m going to be stuck I’d rather be stuck somewhere I can get some work done.”

“Hard worker! Ah like that about’cha,” said Applejack. The siblings hung around a little longer, until they’d managed to extract a promise from Main Course to serve at least two apple dishes once he opened. The first snowflakes had started to fall by the time they left, and Main Course hurried back to Silver’s house to fill up a small sack of necessary supplies for the night and following day. He scribbled down a quick note letting her know what his plans were. A few days before, he’d managed to to drag a mattress and a few blankets up to the living area above the restaurant, and there was clean running water in the upstairs bathroom though the taps in the kitchen were undrinkable until he found where the rust was coming from. It wouldn’t necessarily be a pleasant night, but it would be tolerable.

The snowfall was getting heavier and even though it was the middle of the afternoon the sky was dark by the time he reached the future Knoll and got himself situated upstairs. He took advantage of the remaining daylight to start sketching out ideas of dishes to prepare. If the cafe he and Silver had eaten at earlier really was the best the town had to offer, there was definitely a niche for better lunch fare like soups and salads. Dinners he could get a little fancier with, but nothing too complicated. It would only be him back in the kitchen, after all, and whether Silver thought it was insulting or not, his patrons’ tastes would be a bit more simplistic out here.

Main Course yawned and realized just how hard he’d actually worked today. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was certainly right around nightfall if not a little later. It was dark outside, which was as good a reason as any to turn in for the night.

The howling winds outside rattled the loose shutters and sent a cold draft through the room, making Main Course glad that he’d brought an extra blanket. Checking one last time to make sure that everything was in order, he shut off his flashlight and laid his head down for the night.

------------------

He woke up in darkness. Outside the storm was still raging, and based on the absence of the banging he’d heard earlier he suspected that the shutter had finally been torn off for good. But there was a new sound, too, and it was close.

Main Course stayed as still as he could and listened. There it was again, a rustling sound coming from the foot of the mattress where he’d left his little cache of food. Maybe the building was infested with rats. Applejack had mentioned something about a pegasus who lived near town and was an expert on the local animals, maybe she could suggest something to deal with that.

The rustling turned into a quiet crunching. The rats must have found his crackers. He slowly stretched out a foreleg, silently reaching for his flashlight. Then in one quick motion he snatched it up and flicked it on, pointing it at the source of the noise.

For a moment, what he uncovered left him too shocked to react. It wasn’t rats at all. Instead, a guilty-looking orange pegasus filly with cracker crumbs littering her coat gasped and covered her face. She stumbled back, blinded, as Main Course recovered his wits and threw off his blankets.

“What? Who are you?”

Instead of answering, the filly tried to turn and run. She miscalculated the position of the door, and cried out as she struck the side of the doorframe. That slowed her down enough that Main Course managed to catch up and press a hoof against her back, pinning her to the floor. Her wings buzzed furiously as she tried to escape, but as she realized she wasn’t getting anywhere she started to cry. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I took your food! Please don’t hurt me, just let me go and I won’t come back, I swear.”

As the jolt of adrenaline he’d felt a moment ago started to fade, Main Course’s impulse to catch her was replaced with confusion. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night, kid?”

“I live here,” she said. “But I get it, it’s yours now. Please let me go, please.” Her words devolved into choking sobs.

“I’m not going to hurt you, kid, relax. Where are your parents?”

She started to scream, really scream in earnest now. “No! Don’t make me go back! Noooooo!”

“Okay, okay, I won’t. Just calm down.” He noticed how badly she was trembling, and realized it wasn’t just from fear. “Geez, you’re freezing. I’m going to let you up, but don’t try to run away again, alright? It’s not like you have anywhere to go, anyway. You wouldn’t last five minutes out in this storm.” He lifted his hoof up, and the filly immediately bolted to the corner of the room and huddled there, staring back at him with sunken, bloodshot eyes. Main Course bundled up one of the blankets, still warm from his own body heat, and tossed it over to her. She eyed it warily for a moment, then grabbed it and wrapped herself up. They sat there watching one another until the warmth slowly brought a bit of rosy color back to her cheeks.

“...Thanks,” she said.

“No problem,” said Main Course. “Why did you freak out when I mentioned your parents? Where are they?” She glared at him for a long minute, until it became abundantly clear she wasn’t going to answer him. “Okay, fine. Let’s try something easier. What’s your name? I can’t just keep calling you ‘kid.’”

“It’s Scootaloo,” she replied.

“Okay, Scootaloo. I’m Main Course. You aren’t in trouble or anything, I was just surprised when you woke me up.” He yawned. “I’m going back to sleep. Why don’t we talk more in the morning? Do you want to share the mattress?”

“No. I’m fine here,” said Scootaloo, nestling herself deeper into the blanket and glaring back.

“I’ll see you when I wake up. Please don’t run away again, or I’m going to have to tell the Guard that you broke in. I think it’s better if they don’t know, right?” She thought it over, then nodded. “It’s a deal then. Good night, Scootaloo.” Main Course turned off his flashlight and pulled his remaining blanket back over him. He closed his eyes, but somehow he knew the filly was still watching him from the darkness.

-----------------------

Main Course didn’t bother to set an alarm, so by the time he woke up it was already mid-morning. Looking out the window, he discovered that the storm had been cleared away, but left a heavy blanket of snow over the entire town in its wake. He grinned. The ponies in Manehattan would never tolerate the whole city being shut down for an entire day. The only signs of life was the smoke rising from several chimneys, otherwise it was utterly tranquil.

He turned to look at his unexpected guest, passed out in the same corner as she’d been in the night before. She was still seated, her sleeping head pressed against a wall for support. She must have stayed up watching him until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. “Who are you, Scootaloo?” he asked nopony in particular.

He grabbed his sack and carried it down to the kitchen where he unloaded the contents into a high-up pantry, out of the reach of sneaky little hooves. He still couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t snatch up everything she could and run off again, even if the snow outside was as deep as she was tall. He put out a few slices of toast and a glass of juice for her, though.

It was about an hour later when the creaking of the steps let him know she was awake. Her purple-maned head poked into the kitchen and she resumed watching him, but she didn’t come any closer. “Good morning, Scootaloo. I made you some breakfast, if you’d like it.”

“You’re giving me food? Why? What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“Nothing’s wrong with it, I just thought you might be hungry.”

“...I’m not,” she replied.

Even though it was an obvious lie he decided it was best to just change the subject. “You said last night that you lived here. How long has that been going on?”

“About two years. Nopony cared about this place until you showed up. Why’re you so interested in it anyway?”

“I’m fixing it up and reopening it.”

Scootaloo’s ears drooped. “Oh. So I guess ponies are going to start coming here again, then?”

“That’s the idea, yes,” said Main Course. “But probably not until spring. Until then it’ll just be me here. And you, if you want to stay. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll find somewhere new as soon as the snow’s cleared.”

Main Course sighed. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Well if that’s your decision, I’m going to let the Guard know that you ran away from home, and let them decide what to do with you.”

“What‽ But you said you wouldn’t tell!”

He shrugged and leaned on the counter. “As long as I know that you’re safe, I won’t. But if you disappear then I won’t have a choice. All I’m asking is that you let me know where you are, say, once a day or so? Other than that you’re free to come and go as you please.”

Scootaloo groaned and kicked at the floor with her hoof. “Fine. Not like I have much choice. She looked around the kitchen. “So now what, if we’re stuck inside all day?”

Main Course turned back to the pantry so Scootaloo couldn’t see him grin. “Well, there’s a new recipe I learned about last week. I was going to make it and see if it tasted good enough to sell to other ponies. Want to help me with it?” Scootaloo hesitated. “Or you can just watch and I’ll show you how to make it.”

“I’ll watch,” she said. She still hadn’t left her spot in the doorway, but she didn’t look like she was about to bolt if he so much as looked at her funny either.

Main Course rummaged through the pantry pulling out the ingredients he would need. This recipe would be a bit tricky with only one working stovetop, but he’d made it so many times that he knew it like the back of his hoof. First he pulled out the onions, big yellow ones. “Okay, I need to chop these up.”

Scootaloo made a face. “Doesn’t that make ponies cry when you do that?”

“Want to see a trick?” he asked.

Scootaloo’s ears perked up. “What kind of trick?”

“A way to chop onions without crying. It’s really neat.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Here, do me a favor. Take these and go stick them in the snow outside. Then wait about ten minutes, dig them out and bring them back here,” he said and held the onions out towards her.

“In the snow? Why?”

“You’ll see. Here, come take them.”

Ever so slowly, she crept towards him. Her eyes darted from the onions to his carefully-neutral face and back again. The only sound was the quiet clop of her hooves on the tile floor. When she was close enough, she grabbed at the onions and backed away again. Then, with a final glance back to make sure he hadn’t moved towards her she trotted towards the front door. Main Course let out a long breath. A little progress, just a bit, but there it was. By the time Scootaloo returned with the chilled onions, he had pulled out the rest of the ingredients and started preheating the broiler. “Is this good?”

“Perfect. Thank you, Scootaloo.” This time she trotted right up to give him the onions, though she still backed away afterwards. Not quite as far, though; now she was watching from inside the kitchen proper. Main Course picked up his chef’s knife and began chopping. “If you make the onions cold enough first, the stuff inside of them that squirts into the air and makes you cry freezes instead. See? No tears. Just a useful trick, since a lot of recipes use onions.”

He made quick work of the onions and began to melt some butter in a pot. He turned to look at Scootaloo and saw that she had advanced a bit, though she backed away again when she saw him noticing her. Into the pot went the onions to caramelize, along with the garlic and herbs. He poked and stirred to keep everything from burning, but when he uncorked the bottle of red wine he heard a whimper from behind him. “Don’t put that in,” said Scootaloo. Main Course looked over at her and saw her ears pinned back to her head.

“Don’t worry, the alcohol all burns away as it cooks. It’s like the onions, just a neat trick.”

“I said don’t put it in!” she yelled, then she covered her mouth with her hoof and backed all the way back to where she’d started, half in and half out of the kitchen.

Main Course very cautiously lowered the bottle and recorked it. “Okay, I’ll make it without the wine.” When he judged the onions to be ready, he poured in the beet stock and left the pot to simmer. Cutting a loaf of bread into thick slices, he moved on to grating a block of cheese over it.

“Wait, I thought you were just making soup. What’s the bread for?” asked Scootaloo, recovering a bit of confidence after her earlier outburst.

“It actually goes in the soup. You’ll see.”

“What kind of crazy soup is this?” she asked.

“It’s called french onion. It just needs a few more minutes to cook. Is there anything you want to talk about while we wait?”

Scootaloo looked away. “No,” she muttered.

Main Course wracked his brain trying to think of a neutral topic. “How about school? Do you like school?” No answer. “Do you, um, even go to school?”

“Yeah. I’m not stupid,” said Scootaloo.

“I didn’t say you were. You seem like a very clever filly.” Scootaloo didn’t say anything to that, so silence descended over them again. Main Course stirred the soup, and tasted a bit of the broth. “I think it’s ready.”

“So now we... you can eat it?” asked Scootaloo. The aromas wafting up from the pot were clearly getting to her, and she licked her lips in anticipation.

“Almost. One more step.” He ladled the soup into two bowls and dropped the bread in, cheese-side-up. Then he opened the oven and slid both bowls inside. The cheese began to shimmer and melt. “Oops, I forgot to get a pot holder. Scootaloo, will you watch this and tell me when the cheese on top turns a golden brown color? It shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes.” She trotted over to watch, while Main Course took out two spoons which he set on opposite ends of the counter.

“Is this the right color?” asked Scootaloo.

“That looks perfect. I’ll take them out now.” He reached in with his gloved forelegs and pulled out the bowls one by one, setting them next to the two spoons before shutting the oven down. He leaned over and blew across the surface of the soup to cool it, and suppressed a chuckle at seeing Scootaloo imitate him with hers. She was still watching him, and though she kept glancing at the bowl in front of her she didn’t begin eating. Only after Main Course took a big spoonful of his own soup and swallowed it did she move to pick up her own spoon. Privately, Main Course didn’t think it was his best work, but it was still tasty. “What do you think, Scootaloo? I’d really like to have your opinion.”

Scootaloo was too busy chewing on the soggy bread to answer, but she gave him a vigorous nod. She’d barely swallowed the first bite before she leaned her face down over the bowl and began scooping it into her mouth as quickly as she could. Broth spattered all over her and the countertop, but she didn’t care. Before Main Course was even five mouthfuls in, her bowl was empty and her tongue darted out to lick up the last few bits. Without comment, Main Course pushed his own bowl over to her. As soon as it was within reach she yanked it towards herself and resumed devouring it, as if she were afraid that if she didn’t finish in time somepony was going to take it away from her. In minutes, the entire pot of soup was gone. Scootaloo sat back on her stool with a dreamy look on her face and let out a loud belch. “Um. Excuse me,” she said with a blush. “That was really good.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” said Main Course. He wished his paying customers had that kind of appetite. “Scootaloo, I know I said I wouldn’t tell anypony that you’re here, and I won’t if you don’t want me to, but would you mind if I told my sister? I like to ask her for advice about things sometimes, and I don’t like keeping secrets from her.”

Scootaloo frowned. “I don’t know. Is she cool?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool,” said Main Course with a chuckle. “Don’t tell her I said that, though.”

“Only if she promises not to tell anypony either, but sure. I guess that’s fine.” She yawned and rubbed her eyes as the combined effects of a sleepless night and a full belly began to catch up with her. “I’m gonna go upstairs for a while.”

“Okay. I’ll be down here if you need anything.”

Scootaloo sluggishly trotted out of the kitchen and Main Course heard the stairs creak as she ascended to the second floor. He waited until he heard the door shut, then groaned and rubbed his temples with his hooves. Everything had just become a great deal more complicated.

Interview With a Pinkie Pie

INTERVIEW WITH A PINKIE PIE

Main Course stared blankly up at the ceiling above him. All in all, the pink wasn’t that bad, just... very confusing. On the other hoof, that may have been some sort of pavlovian reaction to the experience he’d just undergone.

“How are you feeling?” asked Silver Scroll, passing him a glass of water. He took a sip. Somehow, it still tasted like cake frosting, as did everything else he’d tried to eat in the last six hours. What had that mare done to him?

“I feel like I just got hit with a wrecking ball. A wrecking ball made of confetti and streamers.”

“Yeah, that’s how the first Pinkie Party always feels. She really went all out for yours. You’ll get used to them, though.”

“I’m not sure I want to get used to them. There was an alligator riding a tricycle, Silver. An alligator riding a tricycle. Do you know what she told me when I asked her about it? ‘Ridiculous, right? Gummy really needs to learn not to focus so much on cardio. It’s like, geez, pick up a dumbbell sometime.’ You could have warned me, by the way.”

“And missed the look on your face when she popped out of that snowdrift and grabbed you? Also, you scream like a little filly.”

“Her hooves were like ice!” Main Course sighed and shook his head. “Anyway, now that we’re alone would you mind if I ask you for some advice?”

Silver Scroll hopped onto the couch with him. “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

“You know Scootaloo? Little orange pegasus filly?”

“Sure. She was a bit skittish around me the first time I met her, but she, Applejack’s sister, and Rarity’s sister are inseparable. Why?”

Main Course recounted what had happened the first night he’d spent at the Knoll, and the following day. Silver Scroll listened patiently, a thoughtful look on her face. “Okay,” she said as he finally finished, “do you want the lawyer advice or the sister advice first?”

“Lawyer, please.”

“Break your promise to her, tell the Guard, and have them bring her into custody. Right now you’re knowingly allowing a minor to live in potentially unsafe conditions at a property you own and preventing Foal Protective Services from getting a full account of whatever’s happening in her home life. What if a floorboard gives out underneath her and she breaks her neck? You would be liable, maybe even criminally negligent.”

“Also, y’know, a foal would needlessly lose her life. There’s that too,” said Main Course.

Silver Scroll held up a hoof. “I’m channeling lawyer-mode right now. Your pony emotions have no place in this part of the conversation.”

“Fine. So your lawyer advice is to rat her out. What’s the other advice?”

“Mind if I preface it with an observation?” asked Silver Scroll.

“Sure, what’s that?”

She sprung forward across the couch and wrapped him up in a big hug. “You are the sweetest big brother ever! Taking her in and helping her like that, I knew that deep down you were really just a big ol’ softie.”

Main Course struggled in her grip, but she was surprisingly strong. “Am not.”

“Oh, don’t deny it. Now do you want the actual advice or not?”

“Please, enlighten me,” he grumbled.

“Two things: first of all, be supportive of her. Forget that first day for a moment, how was she yesterday?”

Main Course thought back. The first day had been the roughest, certainly. The next morning Scootaloo had been much more relaxed, and had eventually accepted a bag lunch before heading off to school for the day. “She was a totally different pony. She agreed to all of my terms, and even said she’d have dinner with me tomorrow night. I figured my soup won her over.”

“Main, I’ve had your french onion soup. It’s good, but not instantly-overcome-all-trust-issues good. Did you ever consider how that first night must have looked from her perspective? You showed up at ‘her’ house, the weather trapped her in there with a much bigger, much stronger pony whose first action was to tackle her to the ground and could have done anything he wanted to her without being discovered for days. Then you threatened to expose something she obviously wants very badly to keep a secret. So maybe she was a little bit paranoid around you at first, but can you blame her?”

Main Course’s face drooped into a frown. “I thought I was helping her.”

“Hey, you did great. Better than most ponies would have in the same situation, I’ll bet. It was just a really tense environment for her is what I’m saying,” said Silver, giving him a pat on the head. “The second thing I’d do is try to build off that foundation. I know you don’t want to violate her trust, but you need to bring more ponies into this. Adults who she already knows.”

“Like who? And how do you suggest I do that without her freaking out?” he asked.

Silver Scroll considered that for a minute. “Maybe you could put her in a situation where somepony ‘accidentally’ discovers that she’s staying with you. It's probably going to happen on its own anyway, might as well make it happen on your terms. She agreed to let you make her dinner tomorrow night, didn’t she? Arrange things so that an adult ‘just happens’ to drop by unannounced. If it’s somepony she trusts, maybe she’ll fess up. The more ponies who she feels like she can count on, the better off she’ll be.”

“I take it you have somepony in mind already?”

“It’s no secret that the filly practically worships the ground Rainbow Dash flies over so she’d be my first suggestion, except she’s about as subtle as a ton of bricks. Same deal with Applejack. Mare can’t tell a convincing lie to save her life. No, I think it’s time for you to meet Rarity.”

--------------------------

Following Silver Scroll’s directions through the snow-covered streets of Ponyville brought Main Course to the front door of a building he’d noticed a few times in passing but until now never had a reason to visit. As he stepped up to the front door, he noticed that the icicles that hung from the roof had a subtle pattern to them, lined up side-by-side by sequential length. A longer icicle would be followed by shorter and shorter ones until they reached an empty gap, then on the other side they would start to lengthen again. The overall impression he got from them was that somepony had carefully hung flowing, icy curtains that glistened in the mid-afternoon sunshine.

He pushed the front door open and heard a bell jingle overhead. That wasn’t a bad idea. He made a mental note to look into getting one of those for the Knoll. “Just a moment!” called a voice from the back room. While he waited, Main Course took stock of the showroom. Various intricately-decorated gowns and dresses hung from the nearby mannequins. One of them was even done up in what looked like a replica Daring Do costume, although the mannequin itself looked like it had seen better days. His inspection was interrupted when the store’s owner emerged.

“Miss Rarity, I presume?” asked Main Course. Silver Scroll had emphasized that he should be on his best manners when he met her.

“Just Rarity will do,” she said as she ran a hoof through her perfectly-coifed mane. Although her facade of a calm and in-control store owner was excellent and clearly well-practiced, Main Course spotted a few little hints of stress around the corners of her eyes. “It seems you have me at a disadvantage, mister...”

“Main Course. I’m the pony who bought that old abandoned building a few weeks back.”

“Oh! You have no idea how happy I was to hear that something was finally going to be done about that eyesore. I wish you all the best; it would be delightful to finally have somewhere to take my Canterlot clients for a meal without them turning up their muzzles at the cuisine. But I’m sure that isn’t why you’re here. How can I help you today?”

Main Course thought about how best to broach the subject. “I’m here about... well, it’s something of a personal nature. I’d appreciate your discretion.”

Rarity’s surprised expression passed into one of intrigue. “Absolutely. Whatever is the matter?”

“Do you know Scootaloo?”

“Well, naturally. She and my sister are quite close. Why, she hasn’t done anything, has she? If she approaches you and requests your help in becoming a ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Building Renovator’ or anything of that sort I would suggest that you decline the offer.”

Main Course chuckled. “No, nothing like that. Tell me though; how well do you know her family?”

“Scootaloo’s?” She paused to think for a moment. “Well, I’ve never actually met her parents. From what she’s told me they both travel a great deal for their jobs, which... I can’t recall if she’s ever mentioned what, specifically, they do. Why do you ask?”

He bit his lip. No going back after this. “I’m not certain she was being entirely truthful with you.” Before Rarity could question him further he launched into his story about the odd encounter with Scootaloo for the second time that day, in as much detail as he could remember. Once he’d finished, Rarity stood there in stunned silence for a long moment.

“Two years? She’s been homeless for two years? How could I not have noticed? How could she not have told me, or Sweetie Belle?” She stared at Main Course, as if he could give her some answer, or some forgiveness. “I was always trying to shoo them away from the Boutique so I could work. They can be so much trouble sometimes, but if she’d just said something...”

Main Course nodded. “I was hoping you might be able to help me get her to open up a little. Could you come over to the restaurant tomorrow around seven? And don’t let Scootaloo know I’m asking you.”

Rarity thought about it for a moment, then winked at him. “Just one small businesspony welcoming another to the neighborhood. I understand perfectly. Is there anything else I can do in the meantime?”

“Well, there might be,” said Main Course as he looked around the room. “Do you make winter clothing in filly sizes? I’d feel better if I knew she had some before the next big storm.”

“Hmm... I can make some, but probably not for at least two weeks. I have big event coming up; thirty nobleponies and designers are coming to see my new line, and it isn’t finished yet. Plus that’s far too many to entertain here, so I’ll need to make sure everything is ready at Town Hall for the evening. She could use some of Sweetie Belle’s old ones I suppose, but Scootaloo’s frame is so much leaner than Sweetie’s is...” she trailed off, and squeezed her eyes shut. “Of course it is. I’ve been so blind.”

“It sounds like everypony missed it, not just you,” said Main Course. “What if you didn’t need to worry about the logistics of your show? Have a catering company take care of all the food and setup.”

“That would take a great deal of the work off my plate...” she chuckled. “Pardon the pun, I suppose. Serve them dinner during the presentation itself, then cocktails while we mingle... yes, that would be ideal. But I’m in a bit of an awkward situation in terms of cash flow at the moment, at least until the orders from this show begin to come in. I can’t afford to cater a dinner party for thirty.”

Main Course smiled. “I need some filly-sized winter outfits, and you need food. I think a trade is in order. I’ll cater your show and take the clothes as payment.”

Rarity gaped at him. “That is by no means an even trade. I can’t accept such an excessive offer for a few outfits. Besides, your restaurant isn’t even open yet.”

Main Course furrowed his brow and stared off to the side, mentally taking a step back from the situation to ensure that he wasn’t making a promise that he wouldn’t be able to keep. He’d been planning to open up a week or so after Rarity’s proposed date, so he’d have to move up hiring potential staff. Still, The kitchen itself could be ready with time to spare. It would serve as a great opportunity to break in the new servers and work out any kinks before the actual opening. Plus there were networking opportunities to be had. If these ponies were wealthy enough to commission designer dresses, maybe some of them were wealthy enough to buy a restaurant in a few months, or could connect him to somepony who was. His contacts were mostly in and around Manehattan, but that was no reason not to be open to other possibilities. “I can make it work. I’m sure the outfits will be worth every single bit.”

“In that case, I’d be happy to," said Rarity with a smile. "I’ll wait until after we speak to her tomorrow night to take her measurements so as not to arouse suspicion."

"Thank you, that's a load off my mind. It sounds like you're busy, so I'll let you get back to your designs. Until tomorrow, then?"

"I would appreciate that. I suppose I needn't tell you how much work it takes to make a business like this work. And thank you for bringing this to my attention. I won't tell a soul."

Finding himself with a new, tighter deadline than before, Main Course made his next stop the local printer's offices. He laid out what he needed, and the green earth pony stallion in charge assured him that there would be fifty 'help wanted' fliers posted around town by the weekend. With any luck the first resumes would start trickling in a few days later.

What he hadn't expected was to find one posted on Silver Scroll's door when he returned to her house. He tore the pink sheet of paper from where it had been tacked up and examined it.

-Rock Farmer

-Apprentice Baker

-Investigative Detective (Solve rate: 1/1)

-Party Planner

-Party Executor

-Secret Agent (Don’t tell anypony, though)

-Professional Skeptic (Oatmeal only)

-Demolition Expert, specializing in fourth walls

-Aeronautical Engineer

-Element of Harmony, Laughter

-Laid siege to the sheep kingdom capital of Baa Ram Ewe for six hundred days

-Battled the forces of the criminal underworld under the super-secret alias of (the last word was scribbled away beyond recognition)

-Has memorized names, ages, addresses, social security numbers, and known weaknesses of every pony in Ponyville. Including yours.

-Can lick her own elbow

-Can lick other ponies’ elbows (Easier, unless they run)

-Thanks to foresight, precognition, and advance preparation, has never been caught off guard by sock emergencies

-Capable of withstanding temperatures up to 1500 degrees Marenheit

-Saved Equestria, like, a lot

Main Course read through the... well he wasn’t quite sure what to call it, actually. He shuddered at the idea of the mare that had abducted him early that morning and dragged him into a room full of guests who seemed equally confused about why they were there for a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party interacting with his customers. He’d be the first to admit he had a distinct bias towards employees who were actually sane, and that meant staying as far away from that pink vortex of crazy as possible.

And then the door swung open, and there stood the very pony in question.

“Hiya!” said Pinkie Pie. “Can we do my job interview now?”

“Hi, Main,” said Silver Scroll from the couch. “Pinkie Pie came over.”

“Thanks, Silver. I hadn’t noticed.”

“You didn’t?” asked Pinkie. She began waving her hooves in front of Main’s face, to his immense displeasure. “I’m right here! Oh no, I didn’t turn invisible by accident again, did I?”

“No, Pinkie, we can see you just fine,” said Silver Scroll, treating the question as if it was perfectly valid. Maybe for Pinkie it was.

“Phew! That was a close one. Anyway, I figured that after you read my resume you’d want to make sure you hired me as quickly as possible, so I stuck around and hung out with Silver Scroll for a bit. She told me how much you loved your party this morning.”

Main Course met his sister’s eyes, which were twinkling with amusement. “It was really something, yes.”

Pinkie beamed. “Thanks! Something is exactly what I was going for. But I don’t want you to hire me just because I threw you a super-fantasterrific party. I’d be a perfect fit for The Classy Vole.”

“It’s The Grassy Knoll, actually.”

“What? They’re hiring too? Oh no, you gotta interview me before it’s too late and they make me a better offer! We’d better get started right away.”

Silver Scroll got up from the couch. “I’ll give you two the room.”

“Don’t worry, I promise we’ll give it back when we’re done,” Pinkie called after her as she left.

Main Course sighed and settled down into an easy chair. “Take a seat, Pinkie.”

“Take it where? When Silver gave us the room, was she giving us the seats too? Because I don’t wanna steal anything.”

“...Just sit down.” Pinkie jumped up onto the couch. The pink coat on pink mane on pink couch on pink wall vision in front of him was the latest in a long line of things giving him a headache right now. “If we’re going to do this, and I’m not entirely sure why we are, I need to know that you’re actually taking this seriously. This restaurant isn’t a joke to me, do you understand that?”

“Absolutely!” said Pinkie, slamming a foreleg on the armrest for emphasis. “The Gassy Hole is no laughing matter.”

Main Course let that one go by, taking a moment to collect himself. “Alright, so what about your last job would you say has prepared you for working the front of the house?”

Pinkie tilted her head to one side. “But I thought you were looking for people to work in a restaurant, not a house. I’m not a maid, silly. Well, except in some pieces of saucy fan art, but that hardly counts.”

“No, I mean what have you learned about how to deal with disgruntled customers? That’s the toughest part of the job.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “Making ponies smile is my special talent, and a smile is the most effective form of regruntlement known to ponykind!”

Main Course’s tension eased a bit. That was actually a valid and not-half-bad answer. “I like that, Pinkie. But say you have a customer who’s somehow gotten so angry he’s actually scary. Legitimately terrifying. What do you do?”

“Scary? Well obviously you just giggle at the—”

“Really. Your answer is that you would laugh in the customer’s face?”

“...No?” asked Pinkie. “I mean, no, of course not. I would... uh...”

She trailed off for a while, and Main Course rolled his eyes. Why was he wasting his time like this? He should just shut her down as quickly and as cleanly as possible. But for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“Singing’s fine, right? Uh... Serenade the sirens! Opera at the offal! Vibrato the vampires!”

“Pinkie, just... just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“No? Singing’s out too? Well, uh, we can dance through the danger! Waltz on by the werewolves! Flamenco with... flamingos?”

“I’d have gone with ‘flamenco with the phantoms, to fit the meter a bit...” he trailed off and shook his head. Don’t help her, you idiot! screamed the rational part of his mind.

Pinkie’s mane went flat, deflating even as he watched. She sank down into the couch cushions and covered her face with her hooves. “I’m sorry, Granny Pie. I messed everything up,” he heard her whisper.

“Pinkie?” asked Main. “Pinkie, look at me.” It took a few seconds, but she lifted her face from her forelegs and looked at him, her tears on the verge of spilling. “Why do you want this job at all? Aren’t you happy working where you are?”

“Yes! Yes, I love it there, that’s why I need this job,” she cried.

Main Course was taken aback. “I don’t understand.”

“I have to get this job. Because of the freezer.”

He stopped and waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Still, it was Pinkie Pie. He’d figured out by now that she wasn’t supposed to make sense. Probably just some random tangent about, who knows, a new ice age or something.

And yet he found himself kneeling besides the couch and draping a foreleg over her. “What freezer?”

“The Cakes’ freezer broke,” she muttered. “It broke and Mr. Cake said they could replace it, but Mrs. Cake said that with your restaurant opening up they shouldn’t spend the money. Because they know you’re probably gonna serve super-delicious desserts and nopony who eats at your restaurant is gonna come to Sugarcube Corner after dinner so they won’t make as much in the evenings. And it wouldn’t be that big of a deal except now the twins need to see the doctor for checkups and they keep telling me to skip shifts and they say it’s just to give me time off but I know it really isn’t it’s because business is so slow already and now you’re gonna open and it’s gonna get slower and the Cakes are gonna make even less and they’re gonna ask if they even really need me anymore and they might not and then they’re gonna kick me out and I won’t have anywhere to go and—”

Main Course couldn’t pinpoint the moment he wrapped Pinkie up in a hug, but he found himself holding her tightly anyway. For a long while, he wasn’t sure it was really helping, but eventually she got much quieter. “So why would you want to help my business succeed? You should be rooting for me to fail.”

Pinkie looked up at him, horrified. “No! I would never do that. If ponies like your food, why would I want to make them less happy by making you close? But if I work for you and you pay me with the money ponies aren’t spending at Sugarcube Corner then I can use it to buy the stuff they aren’t. I’ll give the money back to the Cakes and they’ll have enough to fix the freezer and—”

“Okay, I get it,” said Main Course, cutting her off. She was quite possibly a double agent, sent with a sob story by the Cakes to undermine his startup. Or she was just insane, driven by a completely irrational belief that she could singlehoofedly salvage a failing business model. Either way, the smart thing to do would be not to hire her. “So, can you start in two weeks?”

“You... you mean...”

“It’s provisional. You get a one-week grace period, and if I don’t think that you’re an exemplary employee right from the start, you are gone. I don’t want you disrupting the other workers or making customers uncomfortable with your behavior. No warnings,” he said. “...But yeah. Welcome to the Grassy Knoll family.”

The resulting high-pitched squeeing sound nearly blew out Main Course’s eardrum. “Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you! You won’t regret this, I promise,” said Pinkie, kissing him on the cheeks between words.

“I’ll be the judge of that. You better start getting ready now, though, because I plan to put every one of my employees through their paces. No special treatment.”

Pinkie’s expression became deadly serious. “Sir! No sir! I’ll start training right away!” Then she bolted past him and out the front door, slamming it shut while Main sat there in a daze. What had he just done to himself?

“Well that seems like it went well,” said Silver Scroll’s voice from the other side of the room. Main Course looked over and saw just how widely she was grinning.

“Hiring her was a strategic decision,” he said, “she knows everypony in town. Even if she’s a mediocre employee, she’ll be a word-of-mouth dynamo.”

Silver said nothing, and that grin didn’t budge an inch.

“It isn’t in my interest to drive any local businesses under, either. I can’t be sure this business model will last long term. The least I can do is leave the local economy in approximately the condition I found it.”

The grin remained. If anything, it grew wider.

Finally, Silver Scroll chuckled. “Big ol’ softy.”

Main Course groaned and walked away, if only because he didn’t have any effective retort to that.

Stories From the Past, Promises For the Future

STORIES FROM THE PAST, PROMISES FOR THE FUTURE

“Main Course? I’m home!” called out Scootaloo’s voice. From the kitchen, he heard the door slam shut behind her. He glanced back down at the pan in front of him where two patties were sizzling away.

“Perfect timing! Dinner’s almost ready,” he replied as she trotted into the kitchen and dropped her saddlebags on the floor. “Ahem.”

Scootaloo sighed and rolled her eyes, but dutifully picked up the bags and carried them back to the door to hang in their proper place. When she returned, she hopped up onto a stool beside him and studied the ingredients laid out on the counter. “Hey, how come you always cut up everything first? Why don’t you do it while you’re waiting for stuff to cook instead?”

“It’s called mise en place. They beat it into our heads pretty good at culinary school that you do all of your prep work before you start. That way you don’t find out in the middle of making something that you don’t have what you need, or run out of time and end up burning or overcooking something. There are exceptions though,” he said and pointed to the avocado that was sitting off to one side. “For example, I’m not going to dice that avocado until I’m almost ready to put it on our wildflower burgers. That way it’ll be as fresh as possible when we eat them.”

Scootaloo made a face. “You put avocado on your burgers? That’s gross.”

“Ever try it?”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Well, no. But it sounds gross.”

Main Course allowed himself a little smile. “Give it a chance, then. You might be surprised.” He glanced over at the clock. Six thirty. With any luck, Rarity would arrive right as they were finishing their meal. “So what sort of tricks did Rainbow Dash do today?” he asked. Silver Scroll had been right about one thing; the filly’s admiration of that mare bordered on fanatical.

“She was so cool!” said Scootaloo as her little wings began to buzz. “She did a double-immelmare into a dive that she pulled up out of so late she actually brushed against some of the grass! And she only crashed eight times before she got it right!”

“Have you thought about talking to her? About your living situation, I mean?”

Her earlier exuberance disappeared in an instant. “I... I don’t want her to know that I ran away. She’d think that was really, really lame.”

“Ran away from what?” he asked, but Scootaloo had clammed up completely and wouldn’t answer, so he didn’t press it. “How was school? Learn anything interesting?”

She shrugged. “Not really. We mostly did social studies, and what the different kinds of nobles are and stuff. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know.” Scootaloo watched the burgers cooking as Main Course flipped them over, and didn’t notice the quizzical look he was giving her. “What else are we having with the burgers?”

“There are some sweet potatoes baking in the oven. Why don’t you go check on them?”

Scootaloo obediently jumped down and walked over to the oven. She grabbed a nearby dish towel in her mouth and carefully pulled the oven door open, wincing as a blast of hot air struck her face. “I think maybe a couple more minutes?”

Main Course looked over her shoulder. The orange flesh of the sweet potatoes was just beginning to bubble up through the slits he’d cut in the top. “Sounds about right. Come on, let’s slice the rolls before the burgers finish cooking.” He pulled a cutting board with two kaiser rolls resting on it to a spot where Scootaloo could reach it and passed her a serrated knife. Scootaloo took it and began to slice into them. “You’re gonna want to cut a little higher up... there. Perfect.”

The two worked side by side, the only sound in the kitchen their knives striking the cutting boards as Main Course cut up the avocado. He pulled the burgers off the heat and deposited one each onto each roll, with a healthy portion of avocado chunks on top. Then he carried the plates over to a small rack, where a dozen different colored plastic squeeze bottle rested. Scootaloo studied them for a brief moment. “Which one’s the ketchup, again?”

Main Course reached to the back row and pulled out the red bottle, while he grabbed a white bottle full of an aioli sauce he was particularly fond of. He shook it and deposited a neat little spiral over the top of his burger.

Scootaloo, on the other hoof, was having more difficulty. She squeezed the plastic sides of the bottle, but no ketchup emerged. Grumbling, she tried squeezing harder but to no avail. “Dumb ketchup bottle. Come on, work.”

“Sometimes it helps if you—” began Main Course, but that was as far as he got. With a final grunt, Scootaloo shoved her hooves together. The middle of the bottle warped and bent as the cap exploded off of it, spraying ketchup all over the counter, both plates, and Main Course’s face and chest. Scootaloo looked up in shock and dropped the bottle as she began to tremble.

“I’m sorry Main Course, it was an accident. I’ll clean it all up and I’ll be more careful next time, please don’t p-punish me.” She began to shake even harder as her eyes darted around the room and back to Main Course’s face. He reached for the bottle of aioli, and as he picked it up Scootaloo’s eyes locked onto it and she started to cower. He examined the bottle for a moment, turned it on its side, and squirted a dollop of it onto Scootaloo’s cheek.

She flinched as it hit her, but then a second later she blinked in confusion and her trembling ceased. She wiped the pale yellow goop off and stared at it for a second, then looked up at Main’s smiling, ketchup-slathered face. A matching grin slowly spread across hers.

The two regarded each other for a second longer. Then Scootaloo’s hoof went for the barbeque sauce, Main’s went for the mustard, and the Great Condiment Battle of the Grassy Knoll began.

------------------------

Ten minutes later, the kitchen was in shambles but neither combatant especially cared. Scootaloo, her coat now a complete mess and matted with mayonnaise, egg yolk, and dijon mustard, rounded a corner as a glob of relish went flying past, just barely missing her tail.

“Surrender, Scootaloo,” said Main Course, his own coat and mane not faring much better, “I know you’re out of pickle juice.”

“Never!” Came the defiant cry from around the corner, followed by a giggle.

“Then I’m afraid you leave me no choice.” He leaned around the corner and threw the tomato he’d readied, flushing Scootaloo out of cover and sending her racing away. She only got a few steps before she slipped on a puddle of vinegar and fell to the floor. “Scootaloo! Are you alright?” He ran over to her quickly but carefully.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” she said.

Main Course let out a sigh of relief, but then reached out a foreleg and flipped her onto her back. “That’s what you think, for you see you’ve just fallen into my clever trap!”

“Huh?”

“Now that I’ve got you all covered in sauces, I’m... gonna... eat you up!” He plunged his muzzle into her belly and blew a big raspberry. Scootaloo squealed with glee as her legs flailed in the air against the ruthless assault.

“Is, uh, is this a bad time?” asked Rarity’s voice from the kitchen entrance.

Main Course froze, and his eyes went wide. He glanced up at the clock on the far wall. Sure enough, it was two minutes to seven. He stood up and cleared his throat. Scootaloo hadn’t moved, but her laughter slowed to a stop. “Rarity?” she asked hesitantly.

“Scootaloo, my goodness whatever are you doing here?” she asked, a bemused look across her face. Her horn was glowing, her magic wrapped around a bouquet of pink peonies. She laid them down in a clean spot on the counter top, next to the two forgotten plates where the sauce fight had started. “I just came by to give Mister Course a small gift to welcome him to Ponyville and see what progress he was making on his renovations.” She looked around at the state of the kitchen. A globule of peanut butter that had been stuck up on the ceiling chose that moment to detach itself and fall to the floor, narrowly missing her hooves. “I have a few critiques about the choice of decor.”

“I was just... I was going to... I just needed to...” Scootaloo stammered. She looked up to Main Course, a pleading look in her eyes.

Main Course leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Isn’t that your friend Sweetie Belle’s sister?” he asked. Scootaloo nodded. “Do you trust her?” Scootaloo paused, but nodded again. “Then I think we have to tell her the truth.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face into Main Course’s side. “...You do it,” she muttered.

He draped a protective foreleg over her and looked back to Rarity. “Scootaloo is homeless, Rarity. But I found her here and now she’s staying with me.”

Rarity’s fake gasp was quite convincing, he had to admit. “But Scootaloo, what about your parents?”

Main Course felt more than heard the choked-off sob from the pony pressed up against him. “My parents... I don’t want to talk about them. They didn’t want me, so I ran away.”

“Well, I can’t imagine that’s true. Who wouldn’t want a wonderful little filly like you? Why don’t you tell me a little bit about them and we’ll see if we can’t clear this whole misunderstanding right up, hmm?” When Scootaloo didn’t answer, she went on. “Has Sweetie Belle ever told you about the time she ran away from home?”

Scootaloo looked up at her and sniffled. “Nuh uh. Why’d she do that?”

“Well, she’d knocked over a very nice vase that our mother loved very much and she was scared of what would happen when our parents found out. So she ran away, and they were worried sick when they couldn’t find her by nightfall. That was the scariest night of their lives, and mine too. Even scarier than when Nightmare Moon came back, because we didn’t know what had happened to her.”

“So what happened when you found her?” asked Scootaloo.

“Well, we all cried and hugged her a great deal when she came back home the next morning. She’d spent a miserable night in a little cave by the river and she was a mess, but thank Celestia she was unhurt.”

“I know the cave. I stayed there some nights when the weather was warm. It’s nice and hidden,” said Scootaloo.

“Well, my point is that in the end we were all so happy just to have her back that she wasn’t even punished. I bet your parents would do the same, if you saw them again. They must be worried sick too if you’ve been out on your own for so long,” said Rarity. She gave Scootaloo a gentle smile.

Scootaloo just scoffed. “Yeah, right. Dad would probably want to punish me for ‘embarrassing’ him, and Mom would be too drunk to care.”

The room fell very, very still. “Scootaloo,” said Main Course, “I want you to tell me about your family, and why you ran away. Nopony here is going to judge you for what you did. If they’re bad ponies, we’re going to do everything we can to protect you from them. After all, Rarity here is one of the Elements of Harmony, and one of her best friends is an honest-to-goodness Princess! But we can’t help unless you’ll tell us what’s wrong.”

Scootaloo laid herself down on the floor, not noticing or caring as one of her wings stuck to a patch of maple syrup. Covering her closed eyes with a messy foreleg, she took a few deep breaths before she began to speak. “Things used to be okay. My mom and dad are both big, important unicorns, and my dad even used to go to the noble court for his job and stuff. They were always going to parties and official events so I didn’t always see a lot of them. I mostly hung out with my Uncle Snare Drum while they were gone. I don’t think he was really my uncle, just one of my mom’s friends, but he was a pegasus like me and I really liked him.”

“When your parents were around, what were they like?” asked Rarity.

“Dad was... he didn’t really like spending time with me. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but the only time I ever really saw him was when I had to dress up to go to some public appearance or ceremony. I hated those. Dad always made me wear these big froo-froo dresses that covered up my wings. All the other foals got to wear stuff with holes for their wings, but Dad said he didn’t want mine to show.”

“That’s odd. Did he ever say why?”

“I think he just really didn’t like that I was a pegasus for some reason. I begged every summer to go to Junior Flight Camp, but he always said no. Even when Mom tried to convince him to let me he still wouldn’t, and it would always blow up into this huge fight. Mom was nice, though. She always told me that I was perfect just the way I was, but whenever I asked her why Dad didn’t think that she’d get really quiet and tell me that it wasn’t important. Still, when she had time she would try to play with me and read to me.”

“She sounds nice,” said Main Course. “What happened?”

“One summer, Mom decided that if I couldn’t go to flight camp, she and I would do the next best thing, just the two of us. We spent the whole summer taking an airship cruise all over Equestria. It’s my very favorite memory, sitting out on the deck of the ship watching the sunset with her. No interruptions, no big parties we had to go to, just us. I think that’s the last time I can remember her being happy, because when we got home...” Scootaloo trailed off and rolled over, laying on her side and staring at the cabinet doors. Main Course rubbed a hoof along her back and looked over to Rarity, who was biting her lip. She wrinkled up her nose and stepped into the messy kitchen, trotting over to take a seat next to Scootaloo there on the dirty floor.

“It sounds like you loved her very much,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” said Scootaloo. “Then we came home after being away for three months, and Uncle Snare Drum was gone. Mom just started screaming, and Dad told me that he’d done something bad and been put in a prison somewhere overseas. I didn’t understand, but Dad said he was a bad pony and not to think about him anymore. He was gone, but the important thing was that our family would stay together now. He actually started to get a little bit nicer to me, at least for a while. Mom, though, Mom wasn’t the same anymore. That’s when she started to drink. First it would just be an extra glass in the evening, she said she needed it to help her sleep. But after a couple months I’d come home from school and there would already be an empty wine bottle on the counter, then she’d start on another one with dinner. We stopped going out to plays or dinners in the evening, so every night I’d just have to sit at home with them. Or if Dad had somewhere to go he’d just leave me with her. I... I didn’t like the way she acted when she was drunk.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Main Course. “Scootaloo, this is important. I know it might be hard for you to think about, but did she ever hurt you?”

“She didn’t hit me or anything. But sometimes she threw stuff against the wall. Once I came home and found her standing in the kitchen pulling the plates out of the pantry one by one and smashing them on the counter until the floor was covered in broken glass. The only thing I could do was stay out on my own later and later so she’d already be passed out when I did get home. Even then I had to lock my bedroom door, because sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night to her pounding on it and screaming for me to open it. She’d scream things about how if she hadn’t gone on that cruise with me or I hadn’t been born with wings none of this would have happened. I’d just hide under the covers until she stopped, wishing that she would go away and never come back. Then in the morning she’d say she was sorry and promise that she wasn’t going to drink anymore. Sometimes she’d stop for a couple days, but then she always started right back up again. Another time she and Dad got into a fight that was so bad that the guards came and asked me some questions. But Dad talked to them and they went away and didn’t come back. He told me I shouldn’t tell anypony all of this, because that would only make things worse. What if he finds out that I told you?”

“He won’t. How did you finally run away?” asked Rarity.

Scootaloo shrugged. “After a few years of that, I just decided to leave. I was already spending most of my time out on my own after school and on weekends so that I didn’t have to be around Mom, so the idea of living that way forever didn’t sound so bad. So... I guess it was about three summers ago I stole all the money I could find in the house, hopped on my scooter, and went down to the train station. Eventually, I ended up here.” Scootaloo looked up at Rarity and Main. “Why did she change? Why didn’t she just stop, after she kept promising over and over that she would? Why didn’t Dad make her stop? Please don’t make me go home.”

Main Course lifted her up off the ground and pulled her against his chest. “I don’t know why, Scootaloo. But we aren’t going to let them take you back. As far as I’m concerned, you are home. You stay here as long as you want to.”

“Thank you for telling us this, Scootaloo,” added Rarity. “You were so brave to finally talk about it. Come by the Boutique after school tomorrow, I’d love to make you something. Is there anything else you want me to do?”

“I don’t know, I can’t... I’m having a hard time thinking of anything right now.” Scootaloo’s stomach gurgled, and Main realized they’d forgotten to eat.

“Tell you what, why don’t you go wash up and I’ll see if I can salvage these burgers and potatoes. Does that sound good?” he asked.

“Yeah, okay,” said Scootaloo listlessly. She slid off his lap and trotted away as Main Course and Rarity watched her go.

When she was out of earshot, Rarity turned back to Main. “The poor thing. No wonder she never told anypony. She’s still terrified, and I hardly blame her.”

“We should try to find out who her parents are before we go to the Guard with anything. If they can’t prove child abuse and her father is really as influential as she claims, she could end up right back where she started. I am not going to let that happen,” said Main Course.

Rarity grinned. “You two have really taken quite the shine to one another, I think it’s very sweet of you. I’ll speak to Twilight, and some of my other contacts in Canterlot to see if we can’t track down a name from this ‘Uncle Snare Drum’ pony, as well as missing filly reports.”

“I’ll see what my sister can tell me about our legal options. Thanks for coming tonight, Rarity, and sorry about the mess in your coat.”

Rarity looked down at the sticky grunge clinging to her hind legs and winced. “A small price to pay. Besides, it looks like I now have an excellent excuse to soak myself in a bubble bath for an hour or so. Heaven knows I need it after the last few days.” Then she looked back up at him, a knowing smile on her face. “Don’t you forget to take care of yourself, as well. Nopony should have to be strong all the time. My door is always open to either of you should you need to talk.” She leaned over and nuzzled his cheek, then wiped the ketchup off her muzzle and rose up to leave. “Goodnight, Main Course.”

“Goodnight, Rarity,” said Main Course as he watched her walk away. He sighed, rinsed his hooves off in the sink, and began to clean up.

The potatoes were overcooked, and the burgers were room temperature by the time Scootaloo came back downstairs, her mane still dripping wet from the shower. They’d eaten together in silence, then dropped the dirty dishes in the sink and by unspoken agreement left the rest of the mess to be dealt with in the morning. Main Course showered afterwards, scrubbing multicolored blobs of half-dried condiments from his coat and watching them flow down the drain. He’d only had a few minutes to enjoy the feeling before the hot water ran out, and he hurried through the rest under an icy-cold stream that left him shivering as he toweled himself off. He walked out into the common area of the living quarters on the second floor, still drafty and cold despite the work he’d put into fixing the roof and windows, and found Scootaloo sitting in a chair and staring off into space.

“How about a fire?” he asked, rousing her from her thoughts. Now that the chimney was in better shape, he’d been meaning to try out the fireplace anyway. When Scootaloo didn’t answer, he wadded up some spare papers and stuck them under the stacked logs in the fireplace. He struck a match and lit the paper in a few different spots, and soon the light and warmth of a crackling bonfire filled the room, pushing back the darkness. Main Course laid down on the rug in front of it, and the chilly feeling slowly left his body.

Without warning, he felt Scootaloo’s scrambling hooves as she climbed over his back and curled herself up against his side. “Tell me a story.”

“A story? Um, okay,” said Main Course. “What kind of story?”

“I don’t care. As long as it’s a happy one.”

Main Course cast his mind about, trying to remember one that he’d heard before. He was a chef, not a storyteller. “Well, it’s not a very exciting story, but do you want to hear about how I got my cutie mark?”

Scootaloo perked up a bit at the offer. “Yeah! That’d be great!”

Main Course looked back over his shoulder, past the filly snuggled up against his body, to the little white chef’s hat on his flank. “Well, I always liked to cook. I can’t tell you how many times my mother would come into the kitchen after leaving me alone for ten minutes only find me covered in flour proudly showing her the ‘batter’ I’d made in a mixing bowl. It was usually sugar, water, eggs complete with shell, whatever I could reach on the lowest shelves of the pantry or refrigerator. Watching somepony who really knew what they were doing in the kitchen always seemed like magic. They just took a bunch of random things, put them together, and transformed them into something different and delicious. It blew my little mind every time. So, one year when my sister’s birthday was coming up, I decided I would make her some cookies. I wouldn’t let my mother or father help me, either, I wanted them to be my cookies. So I studied the recipe as hard as I could for a week, then an hour before her party I started making them. I worked harder on those cookies than anything I ever had before.”

“So you got your cutie mark when you mastered a cookie recipe?” asked Scootaloo.

Main Course threw back his head and laughed. “Mastered? Oh, no. Those cookies were terrible. They tasted like burned salt. I was horrified, and I was about to throw them away when Silver Scroll came in and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I’d tried to make her a birthday present, but that I’d screwed it up. Do you know what she did?”

“What?”

“She took the plate from me and ate each and every one of them right there in our kitchen. Then when she’d finished all twelve she told me they were the best cookies she’d ever had because I made them for her. And then, poof. There was a flash of light, and I had my cutie mark.”

“Because she liked the cookies?”

“Not exactly,” said Main Course. “I think it was because I realized that it wasn’t the finished product that made cooking matter so much to me. It was being able to bring happiness to ponies that I cared about.” Main Course smiled, reveling in the memory for a moment before continuing. “Of course, she puked up the cookies about an hour later, but I got to keep the cutie mark anyway.”

Scootaloo giggled. “I like that story,” she said, and then the room fell quiet. Main Course thought she had drifted off until she spoke again, her voice faint and heavy with exhaustion. “Thank you for cooking for me tonight.”

“Any night you need me to, Scootaloo. I promise,” he answered, but she was already asleep. Main Course closed his own eyes, and soon the two were asleep together as the glowing embers in the fireplace slowly faded to nothing.

-----------------------------

Rarity’s fashion presentation was going even better than she’d hoped.

Main Course wiped down the surface of the bar with a damp cloth, looking out over the three mares who were clearing dinner plates away from tables. Most of the plates looked to be coming back empty, which was an encouraging sign. A lot of half-eaten meals usually meant a lot of unhappy diners. Pinkie Pie was on her best behavior, and though he’d heard her distinctive laughter ring out through the room a number of times none of the patrons seemed upset by anything she was doing. The other mares seemed to be holding their own. French Press, the little blonde unicorn with an easy smile, had been hired on the spot when she mentioned she knew how to operate a cappuccino machine, which he’d been planning to install for diners who wanted an after-dinner drink to go with their desserts. He’s also brought on one Lyra Heartstrings, a musician like so many others looking to earn a few extra bits while she waited for her big break. With six more interviews lined up for the coming week and another twenty resumes he hadn’t yet had time to review, he was certain that they’d have a full staff by the time they opened next week.

Rarity’s guests began to make their way from the dinner tables back towards his part of the room, where the dresses Rarity had crafted were set up for closer inspection. Rarity herself moved effortlessly from guest to guest, occasionally pulling out a pad to jot down some figures or take an order. Right now she was talking to an exceptionally pretty orange unicorn mare with a long black mane and an understated blue dress that stood out among the garish outfits most of the others wore. All she wore for jewelry was a simple pendant. Privately, he thought it suited her.

His first customer, a large white stallion in a tuxedo, stepped up to the bar. “Vodka and cranberry juice, please. And be quick about it; I need a drink if I’m going to continue to tolerate this dreadful affair.”

Main Course’s pleasant smile didn’t fade for an instant. He’d grown used to this sort of treatment from the richer class. Even the finest things in life were never good enough. “I hope you’re finding everything to your liking, sir?”

“The meal was adequate,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “Honestly, though, my wife has plenty of dresses already. I’m a Baron, you know. I don’t have time to muck around in a dreadful little nothing town like this.”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Main Course as the cranberry juice he added to the glass slowly turned the liquid pink, “I’m finding it’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

“Hmmph. I wasn’t asking for your opinion. Just pour the drink.”

“Here you are, sir, I hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.” He passed the glass across the bar and the unicorn lifted it up in his magic and walked away, pointedly ignoring the tip jar. It was going to be a long night.

He served a few other ponies, none of whom were much better than the Baron had been. Still, a few loose bits managed to find their way into his tip jar, so at least the night wouldn’t be a total loss. When he felt the urge rise up to reach across the bar and strangle somepony, he just remembered how happy Scootaloo had been when Rarity presented her with a purple parka as well as the hat, boots, and scarf to go with it.

An hour later, the mingling had reached full swing. After the initial rush had died down and ponies had their drinks, Main Course felt himself relax. Then he noticed the orange mare he’d spotted earlier approaching him and stood up straighter, reaching up to adjust his black bow tie.

“Good evening, ma’am, can I get you something? Perhaps a glass of wine?” he asked.

For an instant, the mare’s smile grew brittle and strained as her eyes darted to the bottles behind him, but then whatever discomfort had been there was gone as quickly as it appeared. “Just a ginger ale, please. I don’t drink.”

Main Course reached under the bar for a fresh bottle and opened it with a hiss. “How are you liking everything tonight?”

“Oh, everything has been simply wonderful, thanks for asking. I’ll admit I was a bit wary when my friend asked me to come to a fashion show, these things are so often over-the-top and ridiculous. But this designer’s work is really excellent, and the food was simply divine. Please pass my compliments along to the chef,” she said.

“I won’t need to, actually. I am the chef,” he said, and felt a bit of heat start to rise in his face, decided to take a bit of a chance. As he placed her drink on the counter he held out his hoof as well. “My name is Main Course.”

“Charmed!” she replied, taking his hoof with hers. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part, but Main thought she held on for maybe just a tiny bit longer than she really needed to. “I am Lady Ebony Glimmer.” She leaned in over the bar and lowered her voice. “But ponies who call me that make me feel like a pretentious twit, so for goodness sake call me Ebby instead.”

He laughed aloud and immediately covered his mouth to stifle the sound. “Ebby it is, then. Are you sure you’re from Canterlot?”

She grinned. “Let’s just say a few years ago, some higher power decided to beat a little bit of humility into me. I’ve been trying to simplify my life ever since, and strip away the things that weren’t making me happy. All those obligations to social clubs, possessions I didn’t need, my ex-husband, all out the window.”

The conversation had taken an awkward turn somewhere, and Main Course shifted his weight back and forth on his hooves. “Oh. I’m, uh, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. He was a bastard.” Her eyes flitted over to the bottles again. “But enough about that. It seems I’m doing all the talking. Any special ponies in your life?”

“Just one little filly, right now,” he replied.

“Your daughter?” she asked.

“Not exactly. It’s kind of a long story.”

“The ones worth telling usually are. I’d love to hear it sometime. What’s her name?”

“Scootaloo,” he said with a grin.

“What a cute name! I... had a daughter. One I haven’t seen in some time.” She looked over at him with sad eyes. “Cherish her, Main. Treat her right and love her, or you’ll regret the things you can’t take back.”

“What was her name? Your daughter, I mean.”

Ebby brought a hoof up and fondled the orange jewel that hung on her pendant. “Citrine. Her name was Citrine. I used to call her my favorite present after she was born on my birthday. Although having your water break in the middle of thanking your guests for coming to your party is a touch humiliating.” She gulped. “I’m sorry, but I’d really rather change the subject. Do you cater parties like this often?” she asked as she sipped her ginger ale.

“This was something of a special favor for a friend. I’m opening up a restaurant here in Ponyville, The Grassy Knoll. Hopefully as soon as next week.”

“Well, then I suppose now I’ll have to order a dress so I have an excuse to come back and eat there,” she said, and winked. “Maybe you can tell me the rest of that story when I do.”

“Lady Ebony? Lady Ebony, do come look at the ruffles on this one,” called another mare from across the room, waving to them.

With a sigh and a grimace, Ebby tossed a few bits into the tip jar. “Duty calls. It was wonderful speaking with you, Main. I hope we’ll see one another again soon.”

“I’d like that.”

Main Course watched her walk away with a little more focus than was strictly professional. Either she didn’t notice, or she didn’t mind. It wasn’t much longer before the first guests began to leave, and Main Course closed down the bar and started to clean up. He managed to wave goodbye to Ebby as she left, and his heart beat a bit faster when she smiled back.

Rarity bid a personal farewell to everypony, and when she shut the door behind the last one she erupted into giddy laughter and began rambling to nopony in particular as she went over her notes and found she’d sold twice as many dresses as she’d expected to. Within a few minutes, her joy turned into concern and then a panic attack as she realize she now had to make twice as many dresses as she’d expected to. Main tuned it out. He dismissed Pinkie, French Press, and Lyra with a thank you and assurances that they’d done a fantastic job and would be receiving information about shifts at the Knoll soon.

It was well after dark by the time he loaded up all the dirty trays and dishes into his cart and hauled them back to the Knoll. Scootaloo was fast asleep upstairs when he checked on her, and Main Course began the long process of cleaning everything up. He hummed a little tune to himself as he worked, smiling as he reflected on just how smoothly everything seemed to be coming together.

Opening Week

OPENING WEEK

Main Course was missing something, and he knew it. There was some vital detail he was overlooking, and he couldn’t escape the sense that if he didn’t figure it out soon this whole thing would come crashing down around him.

He sighed as he looked over the latest draft of his completed menu. It was... not bad. It hit all the basics without getting too sprawling to fit on two pages. The dinner menu focused on a number of his specialty dishes that ponies would be able to sit down and enjoy at a relaxed pace. He’d tried to pick dishes that would be novel without getting so exotic that it turned ponies off. Only time would tell if Ponyville was ready to embrace, say, curry-roasted carrots, but he liked his odds.

The lunch menu, in comparison, lacked that same panache. Without any help in the kitchen, he’d be counting on simpler items that could be made and assembled quickly, leaving him time to prep for the dinner service. But a pony could get a bowl of soup, a salad, or a sandwich from plenty of places in town. He needed a hook, something that turned heads right away.

“What’cha doing?” asked Scootaloo. She was standing in the doorway with her helmet on but unbuckled, ready to head out on her scooter for an afternoon of ‘crusading,’ which Main Course hadn’t quite figured out yet, but it was clearly important to her.

“Homework,” replied Main Course, tapping the tip of a quill absentmindedly on a pad of paper.

“Wait, you mean even after I’m done with school I’m still gonna have homework?” she asked, horrified.

Main Course grinned. “Yep. Probably,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out something that will make ponies want to come in and have lunch here.”

Scootaloo frowned. “Why wouldn’t they? Your cooking’s really good.”

“Thanks Scoots, but they won’t know that until they’ve tried it. We can give out samples and such, but I’d rather have something on the menu that ponies would see and think ‘I really want to try that!’”

“Well, I can try to think of something. Like, you’re gonna have a lot of soups, right? What about melted ice cream soup? I’d eat it.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure you would, but I don’t think many grown-up ponies would order that. If you think of anything else, though, let me know.”

“Actually, um, Main Course?” she asked. Something in her voice made look up from what he was writing. Scootaloo seemed awfully bashful all of a sudden. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course you can,” said Main Course. “What’s up?”

“It’s... I kinda told Rainbow Dash about how I was living here. Not about the other stuff with my parents and everything, but the basics. She asked if maybe she could come over for dinner tomorrow, and the three of us could talk about it?”

Main Course’s eyes widened. As far as he knew, this was the first time she’d voluntarily told another pony about her situation, and her idol nonetheless. “Of course, Scootaloo. I’d be happy to meet her. Hmm... what should I make?”

“Can you make eggplant parmesan? It was... it was something my mom used to make back when she still cooked for me. I haven’t had it for a really long time.”

“Eggplant parmesan? Sure, that sounds good,” said Main Course. Scootaloo turned to go. “Oh, and Scootaloo? I’m really proud of you for telling her. I know you didn’t want to.”

Scootaloo’s wings buzzed a few times the way they always did when he praised her, and she smiled. “Thanks, Main Course. Sorry I can’t help you with your homework.” She chuckled. “Back when I was out on my own, I would have tried to get into a restaurant like this one for anything on the menu, or just scraps. Heck, I would have eaten the empty bowls if I could have. I gotta go now; Applebloom said she borrowed a book on medieval siege weapons from the library while Twilight was out.”

“You’re doing a school report on siege weapons?” asked Main Course.

“Something like that,” she called back. An instant later he heard the front door slam and shrugged as he turned back to what he was working on. Then he froze in mid-sentence as something Scootaloo had just said resonated with him. Slowly, the gears in his mind began to turn as he mulled it over. That might actually work. Main Course flipped his notepad to a fresh sheet and began to scribble down figures. He reached the end of the page with a flourish of his quill, looked down at the resulting number, and grinned. That filly was a bucking genius.

----------------------

Main Course adjusted the straps on his saddlebag as he stepped into Sugarcube corner, a confident grin across his face. It was the middle of the day, but the only other pony there was a teal mare with three cupcakes for a cutie mark looking bored behind the counter. She perked up as he walked over to her. “Welcome! How can I help you today?”

“I’m here to introduce myself. My name’s Main Course, and I run The Grassy Knoll. We’re hoping to open up in a few days.” He held up his hoof.

Mrs. Cake’s smile disappeared, and she ignored the raised hoof. “Come to gloat about poaching Pinkie Pie away? Or did you just think you could intimidate us? I’ll have you know that better ponies than you have come and tried to take our business. They’re gone, and we’re still here.”

“I’m not here to fight,” said Main Course, shaking his head. “I see mostly cakes and pastries on display here. Tell me, do you make bread too?”

Mrs. Cake furrowed her brow, still suspicious. “We don’t find there’s much demand for it, but we usually make a few loaves a day. Every bit helps.”

“Well, I’d like to buy some. A small bolle, please. Something heavy, with some body to it and a solid crust. Nothing too flakey.”

“Hmm...” said Mrs. Cake, tapping on her chin. “I think we have some sourdough in the back. Two bits.”

“Perfect. And bring a knife out too, would you? If you think you can refrain from stabbing me with it for five minutes,” said Main Course. Mrs. Cake glared at him, but her curiosity overcame her annoyance and she went back to the kitchen. Main Course undid the latch on his bag and pulled out a thermos, which he unscrewed as she returned carrying the small ball of sourdough.

She placed it on the counter and Main Course took an experimental whiff. It smelled fresh. Taking the knife, he cut a ring in the top of the ball and scooped out a chunk of the top. He took a bite. Not bad.

“What are you doing?” asked Mrs. Cake, now intrigued enough to forget that she was upset with him. By way of answering, Main Course poured a stream of creamy red bisque into the bolle. It filled the indentation and began to soak into the bread itself.

“Tomato soup?” he offered, grabbing an ice cream spoon from a nearby container. Mrs. Cake did the same and they both sampled a spoonful. Main Course smacked his lips. He’d probably need to cut down a bit on the pepper so it didn’t get too concentrated as the liquid was absorbed, but other than that it was good. The two ponies finished the portion of soup, leaving just the hollowed out bread.

“And then you eat the bowl,” said Mrs. Cake, catching on. “That’s pretty clever.”

“Pinkie mentioned that things have been a bit slow around here, so why don’t we help one another out? I’ll buy, let’s say, a hundred of these a day until I figure out what my demand is. I’ll even put up a sign advertising that we’re using Sugarcube Corner bread. What do you say? A hundred and fifty bits, every day I’m open.”

“They’re two bits each. That’s two hundred bits, not one-fifty.”

“I’m buying in bulk. Your margins on a two-bit bolle are good enough that you can give a little to win you that kind of volume. Plus you’ll reduce your waste. One-sixty.”

“We aren’t cutting our prices that deep. One-eighty.”

“I’ll go as high as one-seventy-five, if you‘ll sell them to me exclusively. No supplying my competition when they come to you to rip off my idea.”

Mrs. Cake considered the offer, then stuck her hoof out. “You’ve got a deal. I’ll make sure Pinkie’s there with them at the start of her shift with you on opening day, we’ll figure something else out for the days she’s working here or off.” She grinned. “I’m glad I was wrong about you.”

“Me too, Mrs. Cake. Me too.” He grinned right back at and shook it,. “Oh, and I’ll need a chocolate cupcake to go. I know a little filly who earned herself a treat, even if she doesn’t know it yet.”

----------------------

The next evening, the cupcake still sat in its box on the counter, uneaten. Scootaloo's reward had been rescinded when she was dropped off on Main's doorstep by a very irate Applejack, who explained that Scootaloo did not, in fact, have any school assignments concerning siege weaponry. She was also not in possession of any special talent or inborn ability pertaining to the operation of a trebuchet, except insofar as she'd manage to level several of the trees in the Apples' orchard with a large rock.

Main Course was starting to get a bit worried. He hadn't seen Scootaloo all afternoon, and Rainbow Dash would be by for dinner any minute. Then again, he'd been in the kitchen for most of that time. Tomorrow was the big day, when all the hard work he'd put into getting ready would hopefully pay off. There were lots of last-minute preparations to make in the meantime. He turned his head when he heard somepony knocking, not on the front door, but in the back.

He trotted over and opened it. There stood a cyan pegasus who could only be Rainbow Dash. "Hey there," she said, "you must be Main Course. Nice to meet you. Scootaloo says you're kinda cool, although, you know, not as cool as me, obviously."

"Nice to meet you too. I'm glad we'll finally get a chance to talk about her. I'm not exactly sure where she is, though," said Main Course. Why wouldn't Dash have used the front door?

"Oh, she said she'd be a little late when she dropped off your letter," said Rainbow Dash.

"My what now?"

"Uh, the letter you wrote me saying you wanted to talk about Scoots? It did say to use the back door, right? No offense, but you really need to work on those chicken scratches you call mouthwriting. I could barely read it."

"But I didn't-" Main Course began before Rainbow Dash held up a hoof and sniffed the air.

"Oh, wow, is that eggplant parmesan I'm smelling? That's, like, my favorite food ever. Scoots won't mind if we start eating without her, right? She said to come hungry, and I'm starving." Without waiting for an answer, she trotted past Main Course and into the kitchen. She pulled the pan from the oven where he’d left it on low heat to keep it warm and grabbed a spatula to break off a generous portion. Before Main could object, she scooped it onto a plate. Her ears perked up. “Hey, what’s that music?”

Main Course listened, and sure enough there was the sound of violins playing out in the main dining room. Rainbow Dash followed him out of the kitchen balancing her plate on one wing, but both of them froze up when they saw the scene in front of them. A path of rose petals led from the kitchen entrance to a booth in the corner of the room, where two candles were lit against the low light. A dozen roses in the shape of a heart were laid out on the table. On a nearby table, a record player sent out the refrains of a quiet string piece.

“Whoa,” said Rainbow Dash. She looked over at Main Course, who was still staring straight ahead. “Look, Main, you seem like a good guy, and I totally get why you’d want me, but you gotta give a mare a heads up before you spring something like this on her. I mean, even I know that. You could have said something in your letter.”

“I didn’t write a letter,” said Mane. “I have a pretty good idea of who did, though.” He walked over to the record player and lifted the needle. Without the song’s cover, it was easy to discern the three whispering voices whose owners weren’t being as quiet as they thought they were.

“Is Rainbow Dash here? I thought I heard knocking.”

“Ah think they’re in the kitchen.”

“I still say we should have used the love poison for this.”

“Ew! No way! I don’t wanna see Rainbow Dash calling anypony a schmoopy-doopy anything. She’d never take me flying again.”

“Ah’m with Sweetie Belle. We know to fix it, so we’d just have to wait for one of ‘em to get knocked up and then undo it.”

“What’s ‘knocked up?’”

“Ah think it’s like, you remember when Diamond Tiara came up to you on the playground and knocked you down? It’s like that, but instead of getting detention after school you gotta marry the other pony instead.”

“Really? Wow, grown-ups are weird.”

“Hey, where’d the music go? Scootaloo, check the record player.”

“I’m not going to check it. You go check it.”

“This was yer idea, Scootaloo. You should be the one to check.”

“Fine.” Scootaloo’s head popped out from underneath a nearby table, and she discovered the two adults standing next to it looking right back at her with unamused expressions on their faces. “Uh oh.”

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle stuck their heads out too, and rapidly reached the same conclusion. “Uh, hi there Rainbow Dash. Fancy you coming by,” said Sweetie Belle.

“All of you, out from under there. Now,” said Rainbow Dash.

The three fillies tripped all over one another trying to get out from under the table as quickly as possible. “Scootaloo, did you write a letter to Rainbow Dash and say it was from me? And lie to me about Rainbow wanting to come over and talk?”

Scootaloo bowed her head and stared down at the floor. “I’m sorry. I know I wasn’t supposed to lie like that, but... but you two should totally be one another’s special somepony!” She snapped her head back up, tears in her eyes. “It makes so much sense! Main Course likes to cook, and Rainbow Dash likes to eat! And you could sell food at her shows, or she could tell everypony who thinks she’s awesome that they should eat here!”

“Scootaloo...” said Main Course, letting it hang there in the air.

“I just thought... maybe you two would really like each other... and someday...” she looked away from them. “...Someday you might want to be my new Mom and Dad.”

“Is that what this is about?” asked Rainbow Dash. She laid a wing across Scootaloo’s back. “Sweetie, Applebloom, why don’t you two go home? We gotta talk to Scoots here.”

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle hesitated, then they each gave Scootaloo a supportive nuzzle on the cheek and bolted for the front door before the grown-ups changed their minds. When the door closed behind them, Rainbow turned her attention to the miserable little filly at her side. “Hey, you know that I think you’re just about the most awesome little filly ever, right?”

Scootaloo sniffled and nodded. “Yeah.”

“And I’m gonna keep on being like your big sister, and hanging out with you, and going flying, so you don’t have to worry about any of those things going away. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to be a mom.”

“But you’re Rainbow Dash!” cried Scootaloo. “If you really wanted to be my mom, you would be awesome at it! You’re awesome at everything.”

Rainbow Dash winced, so Main Course cut in. “Scootaloo, being a mom or a dad is really hard. If you don’t decide for yourself, from inside, that it’s something you really want to do then you probably won’t be a very good one. Besides, you can’t make two ponies like me and Rainbow want to be together, either.”

“Right,” said Rainbow Dash. “So even though both of us care about you a whole bunch, if the two of us couldn’t work stuff out you’d just get hurt later on. That’s not fair to us or to you.”

Scootaloo sniffled, but nodded. “...Okay. I’m sorry I lied to you. I won’t do it again.”

“I know you won’t,” said Dash, tussling her mane with her wing. “Now you should go get some eggplant parmesan before it gets cold, because I’m still really hungry.”

Scootaloo got up and walked away, her head still hanging despite the pep talk. Main Course moved to follow her, but Rainbow Dash held out a wing and blocked him until Scootaloo had left the room. She was silent for a second longer. “Just... don’t you dare mess her up any worse than she already is, alright? Or we won’t be cool, and you really don’t want us not to be cool. Cool?”

Main Course sat there for a moment. “Yeah.”

“Good. Now hurry up and get a plate or I’m not gonna leave you any eggplant.”

----------------------

It was time.

Five minutes until ten o’clock, and the moment of truth. Already, a crowd of ponies was milling around outside waiting to be let in, and Main Course had sent French Press out with trays of sample portions to whet their appetites, literally and figuratively. The rest of the service staff, including Lyra and three new hires he didn’t really know that well yet, were lined up for a final pep talk from their head chef and owner.

Unfortunately, Pinkie Pie had somehow started giving it instead.

“Alright, listen up maggots and mag-ettes!” she began, pacing back and forth. Main Course briefly wondered where she’d found the army helmet, but he was rapidly discovering why ‘it’s Pinkie Pie’ was considered a legitimate explanation among the citizens of Ponyville. The alternative was madness. At least the cigar she was chewing appeared to be made of bubblegum. “When you walked through that door twenty minutes ago, you were strangers from different walks of life. All of you have your own reasons for being here, but for the rest of your shift, your plots belong to me!”

“Pinkie, you don’t actually outrank anypony,” said Main Course. None of the other ponies paid attention to him.

“When those doors open, a horde of ravenously hungry ponies is going to come streaming in here, expecting to be seated and served food. It will be up to you, and you alone, to make sure that happens. Nopony is backing you up. Nopony is coming to help you. Unless, you know, if one of you happens to have fewer ponies in your assigned section and want to help the others out that would be the friendly thing to do. But other than that, you. Are. On. Your. Own. And do you know what will happen if you fail?” She spun around and pressed her face right up to a young, green pegasus stallion. Barely more than a colt, really. “They might only tip twelve percent,” she hissed.

A shudder went down the line, except for one mauve earth pony mare at the end of the line who made the mistake of chuckling instead.

Pinkie was on her in an instant. “You! Is something about what I just said amusing? Do you think you’re here to have fun?”

The mare stiffened and stood at attention. “Ma’am, no ma’am!”

“Wrong answer!” shouted Pinkie. “The Grassy Knoll supports a playful and relaxed atmosphere as long as the work gets done efficiently! You will have fun working here and you will like it!”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!”

Pinkie resumed her pacing, blowing a bubble with her gum and, somehow, made the way it popped seem menacing. “Some of you might want to give up. You might think it’s all over when a table of twelve with three coliccy foals gets seated in your section. Or you may think it’s over when the customer who ordered the raw tofu chunks complains that they’re undercooked. Nothing is over until we decide it is! Or I guess until we close for the night. Or your shift ends. Or you have some sort of family emergency and have to leave after letting your supervisor know. But other than that stuff, it’s not over! Was it over when the gryphons bombed Yearling Harbor?

“NO!” went up the rallying cry.

“Then let’s feed some ponies!” said Pinkie. She pointed a hoof towards the front doors which, despite being locked, swung open on their own as ponies began streaming in and over to the counter to place their orders.

Main Course slipped over to Pinkie as the others went to the registers. “Pinkie, I think we need to have a quick conversation about the extent of your authority. Specifically, how you don’t have any,” said Main Course.

Before she could reply, a pony rushed up and passed her a ticket. “Order for celery and raisins on rye, Ms. Pinkie. Table gamma-orange.”

“Table what?” asked Main Course.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. I changed your table numbering system. It was super boring, so I Pinkie’d it up a little bit,” she said.

“But you can’t-”

“Hey!” she said, “we have an order, and you’re the chef. Now get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!”

As hard as he tried later, Main Course never was able to recall the next fifteen seconds of his life. He remembered taking the ticket from Pinkie, and then he remembered finding himself in the kitchen. Nothing in between.

Privately, he seethed. He assembled the sandwich and sprinkled a hoof full of potato chips onto the plate before moving it to the delivery window, where he found three new tickets waiting for him. Pinkie had been a mistake, of that he was certain. Every restaurant had stumbles the first week, it was just the nature of putting together so many moving parts for the very first time. As soon as they hit the first snag, he’d call her back here, blame it on her, and fire her. She wouldn’t be here for more than a quarter hour, then the Knoll could finally get serious.

---------------------

Four hours later, he was still waiting for something to go wrong.

This was inconceivable. Even the best restaurants he’d ever worked at had a few plates sent back, or customer complaints about incorrectly prepared food every night. But somehow, against all odds, everything was working perfectly today. On opening day, when the wheels should have come off within the first hour. They had even sold out of bread bowls, despite their premium price.

As the lunch rush died down, he found an opportunity to head over to the delivery window and watch his staff in action. Pinkie Pie was sitting at the counter with her back to him. French Press came up to her. “Ms. Pinkie? Table Rebel-four needs their water refilled.”

Pinkie sighed. “French Press, how many ponies are at that table?”

“Uh, six, I think.”

“Right. And is six a prime number?”

“No...”

“And is today Monday or Thursday?”

“It’s... oh! I meant table Malfunctioning Octagon! Duh.”

Even though Main Course could only see the back of her head, he just knew she was smiling at French Press. “That’s right! Don’t worry, you’re doing great. I’ll get their waters.”

Right then, Main Course felt a little bit more of his sanity slip away. “Eh,” he said with a shrug. “That’s just Pinkie Pie.”

-------------------------

Six very intense days later, it was time at last for Main’s one day off per week. He’d seen what happened to proprietors who tried to run their businesses seven days a week without taking time for themselves. Most went nuts within two or three months. Besides, he felt like he’d barely spent any time with Scootaloo this week. Her absence had gnawed at him more than he’d expected it to.

Today, though, he’d make up for that. She rode along on his back as he trotted into town, hearing all about the latest schoolyard gossip and who the local bullies were picking on this week. He’d promised her a trip to Sugarcube Corner, seeing as how he needed to stop by there anyway and bump up his daily bread order. By the fourth day, ponies had started lining up a half-hour early to be one of the lucky one hundred per day to get their soup in a bread bowl. At seven bits a serving, it added up fast.

“Hey,” said Scootaloo as the Carousel Boutique came into view, “can Sweetie Belle come with us too?”

“I don’t see any reason why not. Let’s go see if she’s home.” He changed course, carefully avoiding the mud puddles in the road. The weather teams had been steadily melting away the snow in preparation for Winter Wrap Up day later that week. Main Course had been assigned the task of providing snacks and small meals for the earth pony laborers, which he’d jumped to accept. He couldn’t imagine a better way to win a new swath of customers.

Main Course lowered his head and leaned forward to let Scootaloo open the door to the Boutique for him while he wiped his hooves on the ‘Welcome’ mat. They stepped inside and heard two voices chatting and giggling in the back. At the sound of the bell jangling, they stopped.

Rarity stuck her head out from the back room, and when she saw it was them she gasped. “Oh! Oh, this is too perfect. Wait right there, Main, I have a client here who I think will be very interested in hearing how you think she looks in her new dress.” The other voice said something Main couldn’t make out, and Rarity turned her head to somepony out of sight. “Yes, it’s your ‘tasty chef’ in the flesh. Oh don’t blush, dear, you look radiant. Here’s your chance to model it for the first time. You simply must. I am not taking no for an answer, now come out here at once.”

“Main Course?” asked Scootaloo. “Who is she talking about?”

Main Course didn’t answer, but he had an inkling. If he was right, this was going to be a very worthwhile detour.

Rarity beckoned the mystery pony forward and stepped out of the door frame. “Presenting, for her suitor’s approval, wearing an original design by moi, the Lady Ebony Glimmer!”

Ebby, blushing furiously and staring at the floor, stepped out into the doorframe. She was still wearing the same orange pendant, but now she had on a slinky black dress with tiny red accents around the hems. It rode just high enough on her flank to tease at the very bottom of her cutie mark without revealing it. “Hi, Main. I-” she looked up and froze, her blush changing to shock.

From directly behind him, Main heard a tiny, choked-off gasp. He turned and saw Scootaloo wearing the same expression of disbelief as she stared at Ebby.

The two stared at one another for several more seconds, until Ebby spoke first. “Citrine?”

Whatever she was going to say next was drowned out by Scootaloo’s shriek of absolute terror.

An Unexpected Reunion

AN UNEXPECTED REUNION

“No,” moaned Scootaloo, burying her face into Main Course’s coat. “You can’t be here. You can’t.”

“Citrine, oh Citrine you’re alive. Thank the Princesses,” said Ebby. Tears began to flow down her cheeks, but she smiled. “I love you, Citrine. I thought... I thought I’d never get the chance to tell you that again.” She took a step closer.

“Stay away! Stay away from me!” screamed Scootaloo. “Main Course, don’t let her get me. Don’t let her take me.”

“What in Equestria is going on? Who’s Citrine?” asked Rarity.

“That’s my daughter, Citrine,” said Ebby. “She ran away from home years ago, and I thought she was gone forever. This is so wonderful. Citrine, I promise things are going to be different now. Your father’s gone, last I heard he’s living in Baltimare with his new wife. We don’t have to be afraid of him anymore. No more drinking, either.”

“You’ve promised me that before,” muttered Scootaloo.

Ebby’s horn glowed and Scootaloo screamed again as the magic wrapped around her and began to pull her off Main Course’s back. The screams only stopped when he grabbed the hovering filly in his forelegs and pulled her back. Ebby’s magic dissipated as she realized she wouldn’t win a direct tug-of-war, and would only hurt Scootaloo in the process.

Rarity walked over to stand beside Main Course and Scootaloo. “Scootaloo, is this true? Is this your mother?” Scootaloo nodded, wrapping herself tighter in Main Course’s hug. “I see.” Rarity turned back to Ebby and gave her a pleasant smile. “Lady Ebony, I’m happy to report that the dress is yours, no charge. Please take it, leave my Boutique, and never come back here again.”

Ebby was taken aback. “But my daughter—”

“Scootaloo has told us exactly what you were like, and what you did to her,” interrupted Rarity. Her smile didn’t waver for an instant. “Now perhaps I wasn’t clear a moment ago. Get out of my home, you heinous bitch.”

Ebby’s jaw dropped, but she collected herself quickly. “I’m not leaving here without my daughter,” she said. She crouched down, a wild look in her eyes.

Main Course and Rarity began to circle her warily. If this turned into a struggle, Main didn’t want Scootaloo around to see it, or get hurt. When he was close to the front door he glanced down at her. “Scoots, I want you to run. Hide. Come back to the Knoll later tonight. Or if you can find Dash tell her to put you up in her cloud house,” he whispered.

Scootaloo didn’t have to be told twice. She lunged for the door and flung it open as Ebby screamed. “No! No, Citrine, come back! We can talk about—” Scootaloo slammed the door behind her and Main Course stood in front of it as Ebby’s words turned into howls of raw agony.

Rarity fearlessly strode over to her. “Calm yourself right now. What you did to that filly was monstrous, and if you think either of us would allow you endanger her again you’re quite mistaken.”

Ebby took a deep breath, still staring at Main Course and the door beyond him. “I’m not that pony anymore. I was in a very, very dark place for a few years. I lost somepony very important to me in an awful way. I know that doesn’t excuse what I did, but now? Now I can finally make it up to her.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Main Course. “If I hadn’t discovered her when I did and taken her in, she could have died this winter.”

Ebby sniffled. “You... you took her in?” she asked. Realization dawned on her face. “Scootaloo. Of course. You mentioned her at the party. I owe you a debt I can’t ever repay, don’t I?” She walked over to him. He tensed up, but all she did was gently brush his cheek with her hoof. “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’re really something special, Main Course.” He didn’t answer, and she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.

The kiss wasn’t passionate, but it was intense. Her soft lips parted ever-so-slightly as he felt himself begin to respond in kind. There was kindness, and genuine appreciation behind that kiss. It was slow and lingering, and it lit up his mind like nothing he’d felt for a long time.

It also left him completely open to the hoof she slammed into his gut.

Main Course cried out and collapsed. “I’m sorry, Main,” said Ebby somewhere above him. “I won’t lose her again.” The bell jingled again as she raced through the door calling out for Scootaloo to stop.

He groaned and rolled over, but a moment later felt Rarity tugging on him. “Ugh, stallions. Get up, Main, we need to hurry.” Staggering up onto his hooves, the two followed her out into the street. They spotted her black tail rounding a corner a few blocks away.

“I’m going after Scootaloo, you go find help,” said Main Course. Rarity nodded and took off in another direction as Main Course chased after Ebby. He quickly discovered that she’d managed to lose herself in the crowded marketplace.

“Citrine! Citrine, where are you? Where are you?”

Turning to the sound of the voice, he spotted her. She’d managed to shimmy herself halfway up a lamppost, tearing open the side of her dress in the process. The unusual sight quickly became the center of the town’s attention, and ponies around him began to mutter to one another about seeking out the Guard.

Main Course trotted into the open space around the lamppost while Ebby’s calls for her daughter became increasingly shill and desperate. Through the rip in the dress, he saw that her side bore several old scars, a half-dozen little white lines criss-crossing her orange coat. “Ebby?” he asked. For a second he thought she hadn’t heard him, but then her mad gaze locked onto him.

“You,” she hissed. “You won’t take her away from me. Not now. Not after so long.”

“Ebby, come down, okay? Maybe I was too hasty back there. Now that Scootaloo is safe—”

“HER NAME IS CITRINE, DAMN IT!” she screamed, leaning out towards him. As she did, her grip on the pole slipped away, and she fell into a muddy, slushy puddle below. Main Course offered her a hoof, but she just lay there bawling and thrashing around in her rage and frustration. A few minutes later, two guards arrived. She didn’t resist as they pulled her up onto her hooves and led the sobbing mare away through the crowd.

----------------------

“Yeah, you’re all pretty much bucked,” said Silver Scroll. “In my professional legal opinion, of course.”

Main Course, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash all groaned in unison as Silver Scroll took a sip of her tea and placed the cup and saucer back on the table the four of them were seated around. “You know, I was hoping that you’d be bit more helpful than that,” he said.

“Well, you could use the threat of pressing an assault charge as some kind of leverage against her, but that’s pretty thin. Meanwhile, she’s got you pretty much dead to rights on kidnapping charges. Rainbow Dash, for you it’s even worse because you’re actively harboring her in your house,” said Silver Scroll.

“Protecting a filly from her abuser is hardly kidnapping,” said Rarity.

“Alleged abuser. Your only chance of proving any of that in court is to turn Scootaloo over to the state and let them decide what to do with her. At that point it’s anybody’s guess where she’ll end up. Probably with some distant relative back in Canterlot, or with her father,” said Silver Scroll.

“No way is that happening,” said Rainbow Dash. “Now we know who she is, and if she comes to take Scoots away Main and I’ll serve up a ten-decker pain sandwich.”

“That would make things worse in so many ways I don’t even know where to begin. None of you should initiate any sort of contact with her.”

“Oh, come now. She seemed like a very reasonable pony when we were chatting during her fitting,” said Rarity. She winced. “I do so wish I hadn’t lost my temper with her back there. Seeing her try to grab at Scootaloo while she screamed... it may have led me to make an error in judgement.”

“No way, I think that was a totally awesome putdown,” said Rainbow Dash, “and I don’t even know what ‘heinous’ means. After what she did to Scoots, though? She deserved it.”

The two continued to go back and forth on whether Rarity’s words had been appropriate, but Main Course’s mind drifted. He tried to reconcile the friendly, cheerful mare he’d met that night at the bar with Scootaloo’s description of the awful things she’d done. And of course, that kiss kept pushing insistently towards the front of his mind.

“Hey, lover colt. Focus,” said Silver Scroll.

“I wasn’t—”

“Yeah you were, Main.”

“This legal mumbo jumbo may be cool for all you eggheads, but why don’t we just ask Twilight to use that new crown of hers and say Scootaloo doesn’t have to go anywhere?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Princesses have to follow the laws too, Dash,” said Silver Scroll.

“Ugh! Then what’s even the point?”

“None of this is getting us anywhere,” said Main Course. “Look, we know Ebony checked in at a hotel after the guards let her go, but we don’t know what her next move is going to be. Until we do, I think Scootaloo needs to be with one of us whenever she’s not in school so Ebby can’t swoop in and take her away.”

“She can’t stay with me,” said Silver Scroll. The other three turned to her in shock. “I know how that sounds, but if things start to go wrong I’m going to be able to do a whole lot more to help you and her if I haven’t been arrested as an accomplice. I’ll see if I can get the paperwork going for some sort of temporary guardian to be appointed for her while we hash this all out, but if I’m an involved party myself things become problematic.”

Rarity sighed. “I foresee a great many Crusader sleepovers at my boutique. Very well.”

“Yeah, count me in, too,” said Rainbow.

“Thanks, it means a lot to me to have you two helping out with this. I guess now there’s not much to do except sit back and wait to see what Ebby does next.”

-----------------------

Three days later, the frustrating answer to the question of what Ebby would do next appeared to be ‘not much of anything, really.’ Nopony he’d talked to reported seeing her around town, but it seemed strange that she would just vanish after finding out her daughter was alive after all this time. They stuck to their precautions, which was why Main Course had a grumbly little filly standing next to him just after dawn on Winter Wrap Up day, methodically cutting the tops out of bolles of bread. “Stupid Mom,” she muttered. “Stupid Mom coming back and making me have to cut stupid bowls out of stupid bread instead of helping with the wrap up like everypony else.”

“Hey, we are helping. All those ponies are gonna get hungry, right? We’re gonna make the best food we can for them so they can take a break and get right back out there,” said Main Course.

“I don’t see why I couldn’t help Rainbow Dash doing real stuff instead of just this,” she replied.

“Rainbow has a whole team to supervise. She doesn’t have time to watch you.” He returned to stirring the giant pot of soup, a creamy barley and vegetable medley, while Scootaloo continued her moping. “Scootaloo, if your Mom does come back again, are you sure you won’t talk to her? I could be there with you if you wanted, and I wouldn’t let her take you anywhere. You could just talk.”

“I told you, no. I don’t ever want to see her again. At all. Ow!” Scootaloo dropped the knife that had just bitten into her skin as her cut began to bleed.

Main Course grabbed a paper towel and pressed it against her foreleg. “Let me see... this doesn’t look too bad. Come on, let’s go clean it and I’ll get you a bandage. He left her holding it under the running water while he grabbed a cloth bandage and medical tape out of the nearby first aid kit. When he turned back to her, he found that she was quietly sobbing over the sink. Concerned, he took another look at her cut, but when he touched her foreleg she grabbed him and pulled him into a hug.

“I hate her,” she whispered as he returned the hug, ignoring the drops of blood seeping into his coat. “I hate her so much.”

“Don’t hate her, Scootaloo,” he replied. “You’ll never have to see her again if I have anything to say about it, but giving your memories of her that much power over you isn’t a good idea either. I don’t think she wanted to cause you any of this pain you’re in, okay?”

“But she did! So why does it matter if she wanted to or not? It would have been better if she’d never existed.”

Main Course couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, if she hadn’t existed then neither would you, so no matter what she did do at least one really great thing.” He wrapped the bandage around the cut a few times, and the bleeding slowed to a stop. “And guess what? Now that you’ve cut yourself doing prep work you’re officially an honorary chef.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Huh?”

“That’s how it works. It’s like a rite of passage. Every chef picks up a few nicks and cuts over the years, that’s just life. But we just wash ourselves up and go right back to work,” he said. Well, there was also a great deal of cursing that was usually involved, but Main Course thought it would be prudent not to mention that.

Scootaloo stared down at the little pink spot on the bandage. “So I’m a chef now?”

“You sure are! Now do me a favor and go stir that soup pot while I wash my hooves. I don’t want it to burn.”

He scrubbed his hooves clean and wiped them dry before returning to his work. A quick peek through the window showed the sun getting higher, and soon it would be time for the wrap up teams to meet in front of the Town Hall. “Main Course? Are you going to get in trouble for not letting Mom come see me?”

He kept his expression carefully neutral, but inside he was groaning. Where did she pick up on that? “You let me worry about that.”

“It’ll be spring tomorrow, so the weather’ll be getting nicer. I could... I could run away again if you wanted me to. That way Mom couldn’t take me, but you wouldn’t have to get in trouble either.”

“Scootaloo! Of course I don’t want you to run away from here,” said Main. He looked down and saw she was smiling up at him, even though her lips were quivering.

“It w-wouldn’t be so bad. I’m used to it, and that way you could run your restaurant and be happy.”

“No I couldn’t, Scootaloo.” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t have you, especially knowing you were out there without a proper home. You and I are going to stick together no matter what, understand?”

She nodded and smiled. “Got it. Thanks, Da—” she slapped her hoof over her mouth.

“You can call me that if you want to, Scoots. I wouldn’t mind,” he said quietly. He felt the blood pounding in his ears and found he was desperate to hear her do just that.

“Thanks, Daddy,” she whispered.

The two of them sat on the floor hugging one another. The soup simmered away on the stove, and the meeting in front of Town Hall came and went. Nopony noticed that the crowd was missing two ponies in particular.

-------------------------

By the end of Winter Wrap Up day, Main Course was bone-tired. Ponies had been coming through all day for free food, and every bit of it that he’d prepared over the last three days had been picked clean. Scootaloo was off to spend the night at Rarity’s so that he could sleep in instead of walking her to school. He’d given the staff the next morning off, too. He’d skip opening for lunch and just do a dinner service. All that was left was to mop up the snow and mud everypony had tracked through the place, then his bed called to him.

To his annoyance, somepony knocked on the door. “We’re closed!” He called out over his shoulder. But the knocking continued. When he turned to see who it was, he saw Ebby’s smiling face on the other side of the door. He paused for a long minute, then unlocked the door and opened it. “Scootaloo isn’t here, Ebby.”

“I didn’t come to talk to her tonight, I’m here to talk to you. Can I come in?”

“If I say no are you going to kiss me and punch me in the gut again?” he asked, leaning his weight on the upright mop.

“I can skip the punching you in the gut part this time, if you’d prefer. The first bit was pretty enjoyable, I thought.”

He felt the corner of his mouth twitch into the first hints of a smile. “Yeah, come on in. Watch your step on the floors.”

Ebby walked into the Knoll, the white robe she wore gliding a few inches above the wet floor. Main Course led her to a table near the wall, and pulled her chair out for her. “What a gentlecolt,” she remarked as he took his own seat in turn. Her easy smile got a bit more eager. “I don’t suppose that Citrine has changed her mind about me over the last few days?”

“I’m sorry, Ebby. She doesn’t ever want to see you again, and I’m not going to make her.”

“Main Course, I don’t want us to be enemies,” she said as she reached out and placed a hoof over his. “I wasn’t lying when I said that I owed you a debt, or when I said you were special. But I’m not going to give up on this. Couldn’t you try to persuade her just to talk to me? If I just had the chance to show her that I’ve changed I think I could win her over.”

“I don’t think you really appreciate the full extent of the damage you did to her. How many times did you promise her that you’d changed only to go back on that?”

“I’m sure your sister the lawyer explained that, legally, I hold pretty much all the cards here,” she said. His surprise must have been obvious, because she continued. “What do you think I’ve been doing over the last few days? You and Citrine caught me by surprise the other day, and I think we can all agree it went poorly. I looked into you so that wouldn’t happen again.”

“So you know all about me, and I know nothing about you except what Scootaloo’s told me. Her story doesn’t exactly make you look good.”

She shrugged. “So ask me whatever you want. You’ve heard the worst of it, I have no reason to lie to you.”

“Alright,” said Main Course. “What’s the real deal with Scootaloo’s father?”

She flinched. “That’s a long story.”

“Somepony once said to me that the ones worth telling usually are.”

“Fair enough,” she said with a grin. She settled back in her chair. “I come from a relatively minor noble family with some landholdings in the forests to the west, but our clan has always been eager to climb the social ladder. My parents managed to win the favor of an older and more powerful family, and they cobbled together an alliance with them. I won’t bore you with the details, they don’t really matter. But to seal the deal they married me off to a stallion a decade older than me who I’d never met before my wedding day. He's called Count Obsidian.”

“Geez, and you went along with it?” asked Main Course.

“It was drilled into my head from early on that helping the family grow more powerful was the thing that mattered, and I had just reached marriageable age. It’s what I expected from my life. Move into a manor, birth a few heirs, then linger around Canterlot amusing myself with gossip and palace intrigue. Only one little thing went wrong.”

“What was that?”

Ebby’s smile turned wistful. “I fell in love. Even worse, with a musician who didn’t have a drop of noble blood in his body. He opened up a whole world of adventure and excitement to me, and my sheltered little filly heart never stood a chance.”

“This was Scootaloo’s ‘Uncle’ Snare Drum, I take it?” asked Main Course.

“Indeed it was. With his purple mane, wings, and an ‘I-can-take-on-the-world' attitude. Sound familiar?”

“The Count must not have been too happy about that.”

“Oh, we had an arrangement. He had quite a few consorts of his own over the years, and some of them I even count among my dearest friends to this day. But there were two conditions. The first was discretion, and the second was a legitimate heir. We failed both. Snare Drum absolutely adored Citrine. He even used to take her up flying with him, or out into town. It was hard for ponies not to notice the resemblance. I was young and too foalish to realize what sort of damage I was doing to the Count’s reputation, and to him reputation is absolutely everything. Despite his best efforts, I wasn’t getting pregnant again, either. Not a recipe for a happy Count.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t be.”

“So he was a cold and distant father, but I didn’t care. But then Snare Drum went and did something very, very stupid. He’d been getting away with this lifestyle for long enough that I guess he thought my protection made him invincible, or something. We threw a banquet for a few hundred ponies and I arranged for his band to play at it, which wasn’t unusual in and of itself. Social event of the month. All of our friends, allies, and ponies we wanted to impress were there. Then, in the middle of after-dinner drinks, he got up and announced that he wanted to play a new original song of his, as a special thanks to the generous host.”

“What was wrong with that?”

“The song was called ‘The Cuckold Count.’”

Main Course sucked the air through his front teeth. “Ooh.”

“Yeah. By the middle of the second verse everypony was doubled over with laughter. Even he laughed along like it was all in good fun, but I saw it in his eyes that night. He was livid. After that, he started to get cruel, especially towards the pony who reminded him the most of Snare Drum.”

“Ebby... did he beat her?”

She went silent for several seconds before she would answer. “No. I never let him lay a hoof on Citrine.”

That hung in the air between them for a long while. “You know, here in Ponyville it’s unusual for ponies to wear clothing all of the time. It just occurs to me that I’ve never seen you without it,” said Main Course. “I’m not even sure what your cutie mark is.”

“I got it a lot later than most ponies. I guess I’m just a late bloomer. It’s a shield, carved out of black wood.”

“Can I see it?” he asked. Ebby just glared across the table at him. “You dress ripped back in the market the other day.”

“Better me than her,” she said softly. “That was the deal. He didn’t hurt her, she never saw anything, and he never talked about it in front of her. I think sometimes she heard things, though. Obsidian just told her I’d done something bad and was being punished.”

“Why didn’t you run? Take your daughter and get out of there?”

She smiled at him. “You know, Snare Drum said the same thing. He promised me he would take me away from there and we could start over. He just needed a few months to get the money ready. I wasn’t sure I would hold out that long, honestly, but then I had what I thought was an amazing stroke of luck. A friend offered me two tickets on an airship cruise, and I snapped them up.”

“And when you came back, Snare Drum was gone,” finished Main Course. He leaned forward over the table. “What really happened to him?”

“All Count Obsidian would tell me was that he ‘got what he deserved,’ I had to track down the real story on my own. He’d gone out to play a show in Diamond Dog territory, way further than he’d ever gone to do a show, and they found stolen artifacts when they searched his bags at one of the sites he was playing. They accused him of being a smuggler, and sentenced him to twenty years in one of their underground labor camps. Ponies who go down there don’t come back up, Main, it’s a death sentence.” For the first time since starting her story, a tear fell from her eye and Main passed her a napkin to dab at it.

“Was he? A smuggler, I mean.”

“I’ve never been sure,” admitted Ebby. “He had friends in some less-than-savoury circles, it’s true. But either he was framed or he was only doing it to get the money for me and Citrine. Either way the Count made sure he’d go down for it, and by the time I found out it was all over. So in the end it doesn’t really make a difference.” She looked over at him and tried to crack a smile. “Sorry you asked, right? Told you it was a long story.”

“Ebby, I had no idea. If there’s anything I can do...”

“There is. Give me my daughter back. I’m taking her back to Canterlot with me, one way or another. You can even come and visit her once we’ve gotten things situated.”

Main Course shook his head. “I can’t do that. None of that changes the fact that after that you were utterly horrible to Scootaloo afterwards. What you did traumatized her just as thoroughly as the Count did. You systematically terrorized her and violated her trust over and over again for years. I’m sympathetic, but I’m not going to let you uproot her from the life she’s finally started to establish here. Not to mention the fact that she doesn’t want to see you, much less let you back into her life as her mother.”

She sneered. “You’re a damned hypocrite, do you know that?”

Main Course drew his head back at the accusation. “What are you talking about?”

“Pretending you’re some kind of savior to her, and that you care so much about giving her a stable home environment here in Ponyville. I took a little trip to Manehattan the other day. Grace says hi, by the way,” said Ebby.

“You talked to Grace?” he asked before wanting to kick himself. Of course she did. Hadn’t she just said she’d looked into him?

“She told me what your plans are. Sell this place a couple of months from now and go back to your real life. Were you going to adopt my daughter and take her with you and ‘uproot her from the life she’s finally started to establish here’? Or maybe just bundle her in with the property for the next owner to deal with, that’d be easier for you.”

“It’s... it’s not like that,” he stammered. He’d been so fixated on the day to day of setting up and running the restaurant that he realized he had no idea how Scootaloo would fit into his plan to go home to Manehattan.

“It’s exactly like that. Oh, and if you want to sell this place? I’ll buy it. I have the money. I’ll even hire a couple specialists to get your insurance claim pushed through and you can be out of Ponyville in two weeks.”

“In other words, you want me to sell you Scootaloo. The answer’s no, Ebby. It doesn’t matter how much you offer me, the answer’s still no.”

Ebby closed her eyes and dipped her head. She took several deep breaths, and when she looked up again there was a playful glint in her eyes. “I would admire that about you, if I didn’t find it so annoying right now. Are you sure there’s nothing that I can do or offer you to make you drop your objections to returning Citrine to me?”

“I’m sorry, Ebby, there really isn’t,” he replied. Folding his forelegs over his chest, he stared her down until she sighed.

“Alright then, but I want you to remember that I did everything in my power to compromise with you.” She rose from her seat. “Oh, and you can let your friends and your sister know that I won't be pressing any sort of charges. I don’t want you in jail. You’re good ponies who are trying to do what you think is right for my daughter, and I respect that.” She walked away, but stopped at the front door. The sides of her robes shook, like her legs were trembling underneath them. “Main?” she asked without looking back, “if we’d met under different circumstances, do you think we could have had something together?”

“I think so. In fact I’m hoping maybe we still can. Maybe things will work out in a way that leaves us all friends, right?”

Ebby was silent for a long time. “I saw that you’re closed for lunch tomorrow,” she said when she spoke again. “Would you mind if I stopped in anyway? Say about 1:30? I never did get a chance to try that vegetable stew everypony says is so good.”

Main Course smiled. “Sure. As long as Scootaloo isn’t around, you’re welcome here.”

At that she flinched for some reason. “Goodnight, Main. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

----------------------

Main Course found that he couldn’t stop staring at the clock.

It was a slow morning, with neither food to prepare nor Scootaloo to get up and off to school, so he hadn’t gotten out of bed until nearly ten. Laying there with nothing he needed to get up and do right away had been incredibly refreshing, and it had given him time to ponder some of the things that he’d talked to Ebby about the night before. What was he going to do when it came time to sell this place? His dream had always been to be a renowned chef, and it had been beaten into him that the place to do that was a big city like Manehattan or Canterlot. That’s where all the new ideas were. That’s where all the critics who could get you noticed were. Sure, the customers were snooty jerks a lot of the time, but that wasn’t so bad when you got used to it.

So why didn’t he miss it?

Oh, intellectually he knew that he should want to go back. And he did really want to see Grace again. But what was he likely to accomplish if he did? Well, he’d make a lot more money. Which would immediately get eaten up by rent, food prices, drinks at a bar, everything that was an order of magnitude more costly there than it was here. More ponies would know and respect him. But every pony in town knew exactly who he was. Some of them stopped him on the side of the road just to ask him for cooking tips and advice already. It was flattering and personal in a way that a good review in a prestigious magazine really wasn’t. And any way he sliced it, he certainly wouldn’t have an assistant manager like Pinkie Pie back there.

Pressure in his bladder cut off his introspection before he reached any kind of final conclusions. He sighed and got out of his bed, slipping on the fuzzy pink slippers his sister had gotten him a joke one year which despite their apparent oddity were actually very comfortable, and trotted into the bathroom to freshen up.

Assorted payroll documentation and other paperwork occupied the rest of his morning, until he wandered down to the kitchen, his kitchen, and started to heat up a pot of vegetable stew. He cursed under his breath when he realized that he’d forgotten to tell the Cakes not to send him any bread today, as the bags of fresh sourdough sat on his countertop in the same spot as they always did. He wasn’t actually certain how they got there every morning, but he suspected Pinkie was involved somehow.

By 1:20, two very nice places were set at one of his tables. On impulse, he lit up a vanilla-scented candle and placed it on a nearby table. As he moved around the room making sure everything was perfect, he caught himself humming without even realizing it.

At 1:25 there was a knock on the door. Main Course paused. He didn’t want to seem too eager, and he needed a moment to slow his racing heart. Then he trotted over to the door and opened it. There in a flowing green sundress, complete with a parasol, stood a smiling Ebby. “Come on in,” he said, not waiting for her request this time.

She leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek, and blushed. “I love the first day of Spring after Winter Wrap Up, don’t you? Just walking around seeing the world renewed again. But right now I am famished.”

“Well, you came to the right place!” he proclaimed a bit too eagerly. He admonished himself to calm down and not blow this. “Please, take a seat at our table. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Vodka martini,” she deadpanned, then she giggled. “Just kidding, water’s fine.”

He brought out two plates from the kitchen with a bread bowl full of vegetable stew on each, as well as a fresh bouquet of azaleas for the table, and poured two glasses of ice water from a jug on the nearby table. “I hope you enjoy it.”

“I’m certain I will, this smells divine.”

Both ponies made a point of not bringing up their disagreement over Scootaloo, or what they’d talked about the night before. Favorite songs, books, even foal hood stories were compared. Main Course regaled Ebby with stories of the Crusader’s exploits and she hung on every word. She in turn, had countless anecdotes about the antics the nobility got up to, and the strange, warped little mental world some of them seemed to inhabit.

“Ha ha haaaa, Ebby, stop, stop, I can’t... I can’t breathe,” gasped Main Course between spasms of laughter.

“So then, so then the Duke climbed out of the lobster tank, and he says... he says... are you ready for this? He says ‘Good thing I brought a spare monocle!’” Both of them launched into a fresh round of guffaws, and Ebby wiped a tear away from her eye. “Oh, gracious, that stew was delicious.”

“I’m really glad we did this, Ebby,” he replied. The smile on his face felt like it was never going away.

“Yes, so am I,” she said, then grew quiet for a moment. “I wanted to see what this would have been like. Just once, to remember you by. And I wanted to make you happy.”

“Ebby, you make me happy just by being yourself. You don’t have to do anything special.” He reached for her hoof, but she pulled it away.

“Please don’t. This is already hard enough. Main, I talked to Foal Protective Services the other day. I made a full confession to them of the way I acted around Citrine before she ran away. I don’t want to hide from my actions, I did what I did and I deserve the consequences,” said Ebby.

“They aren’t... they aren’t sending you to prison or anything, are they?” asked Main Course, horrified that he might be about to lose this very special mare he’d just met.

“No, I made a plea deal. An inspector will check in every few days to make sure everything is okay, and I’m required to go to counselling for the alcoholism, and there’s probation. Still, as long as they don’t see any signs that things are wrong, they’re fine with me being a mom again,” said Ebby, refusing to look at him.

“I don’t understand, that’s great news. Maybe Scootaloo will change her mind a little bit when she hears. At least it’s a start.”

“I want you to know that I never wanted to go through them at all. Their methods are a little bit... brusque. They’re designed to remove the foals from very bad situations where adults might be abusing them, after all, and in most cases a forceful approach is probably for the best. For Citrine, I don’t think it’s ideal.”

“Why, what do they do?” asked Main Course.

“Usually, they’ll find the foal when they’re in a safe, fairly public place, like their school. Once they’ve identified themselves, the teacher is obligated to comply with the court order, and the FPS agents take the foal into custody and bring them to the office where the order was issued from. Canterlot, in this case. They don’t even let the parents say goodbye to them, in case they try to intimidate or threaten them into not testifying. It’s just unpleasant all around.”

Main Course sat there in shock staring at her. “Tell me you aren’t saying what I think you are, Ebby.”

“I wish you would have compromised last night. It would have been better for everypony. But you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t even consider it. You knew how badly I wanted Citrine to come home so I can start rebuilding what I had with her. You left me with no choice.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “You deserve to hear it from me, even though I know you’ll never forgive me. I’m taking my daughter back.”

A thousand things ran through Main Course’s head as he felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. Memories flashed before his eyes: The first time he’d found her sneaking food from his bag. Watching her devour an entire pot of soup in record time. Cleaning out a splinter she’d gotten helping him remove a floorboard. The first time she’d let him give her a hug goodnight. The time he’d used measuring cups to help her with her fractions homework. The moment she introduced her best friends to him. The way she’d tried to hook him up with the pony she admired most in the world.

And just yesterday morning, the time she’d called him Daddy.

“How much time do I have? I can be at the schoolhouse in fifteen, no, twelve minutes. I can say goodbye at least. And her scooter, I have to give that back to her. You can’t do this. You can’t do this! Why should she ever trust you again? Why should I? Where is she right now? Where is she‽”

Main Course knocked over his chair as he leapt up to his hooves, screaming at Ebby who sat on the other side of the table, eyes closed and waiting for it to be over. When he finally paused she looked over at him with misty eyes.

“She’s on the train that left for Canterlot twenty minutes ago.”

Somepony Save Me

SOMEPONY SAVE ME

Main Course tore through the streets of Ponyville at a full gallop towards the train station. An errant thought registered that he’d forgotten to shut the front door after he shoved it open on the way out of the restaurant. Ebby could shut it when she left, hopefully never to come back. She’d sat there at his table, eating his food and telling jokes while Scootaloo was being ripped away from the life she knew. She probably screamed out for you to come help her, his mind helpfully volunteered.

He galloped faster.

As he skidded to a stop on the platform of the train station, he cast his gaze about desperately for any sign that the train might have been delayed or broken down. But the tracks were empty, and there was no sign of Scootaloo. The only other pony was a green unicorn in a necktie, who looked like he had been waiting there for some time.

“You must be Main Course,” he said. “I’m Agent Palomino, with Foal Protective Servi—”

Main Course dashed over to him and lifted him off the ground by the scruff of his neck before he could finish. “Bring her back,” he growled. “Bring her back right now.”

“I understand that you’re upset,” said Palomino in a calm voice, “but I’m going to need to ask you to put me down.”

“You’re bucking right I’m upset! Where did you take her?”

“Mister Course, I do this for a living. I frequently deal with ponies who are just as upset with my actions as you are right now. Oftentimes they are larger and stronger than you are, or armed. I am trained in five different forms of martial arts, and the only reason I haven’t yet dropped you to the ground with several broken ribs is that Lady Ebony’s testimony suggested that you’ve been a positive influence on the filly in question. That courtesy will expire in five seconds. I suggest you put me down before it does.”

Main Course looked into Palomino’s eyes and saw no sign that he was bluffing. He lowered him gently to the ground and Palomino brushed some dust off his shoulder. “Now, where is Scootaloo?”

“On her way to a transitional foster care facility in Canterlot,” said Palomino. “She’ll be assessed, questioned, and given a safe place to stay before we assign her a new guardian.”

“You mean before you give her to Ebby,” said Main Course.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, Lady Ebony. She is a strong contender, certainly. We haven’t been able to contact the filly’s father as of yet, but he would also be a possibility.”

Main Course scoffed. “Good luck with that. He’s in a Diamond Dog work prison.”

Palomino raised an eyebrow. “I find it rather difficult to believe that Count Obsidian was put into a work camp without it making the papers.” Main Course sealed his mouth shut, realizing he’d said too much. “Oh, you meant her biological father. Relax, infidelity lost its power to surprise me three weeks after I started this job. In point of fact, the filly’s paternity is unimportant. His wife at the time birthed the foal, and he acted as her father throughout the years leading up to her disappearance. In the eyes of the law, her genetic makeup is irrelevant at this point. If he wishes to raise her, he certainly has a claim that will be evaluated as if he were her biological father.”

“Well, what about me?” asked Main Course. “She wants to be here with me. Shouldn’t that count for something? Because you damn well better believe I’m throwing my hat into the ring with the others.”

Palomino tapped his chin, considering this. “It does count for something, yes. We try to take the foal’s preference into consideration. But try to consider that in light of the rest of your circumstances. You own and operate your own restaurant, correct? How much work is involved with that, weekly?”

“I don’t know, maybe seventy, eighty hours a week? It’s certainly a full time position.”

“Quite. And you wouldn’t characterize yourself as being in a long term relationship, would you? It’s just you?”

“Well, yes, I suppose it is but—”

“So who, exactly, is taking the time to raise this foal while you’re so busy?”

Main Course bristled at the implication. “I’ve made time for her.”

“Perhaps, yes, in fits and starts. But what happens when you start being responsible for things like parent-teacher conferences? Dentist appointments? What happens when some emergency crops up in the middle of the day? Can you leave your station on a few minutes notice? Do you have any special training or talent for dealing with a traumatized foal's particular needs?” The ensuing silence spoke volumes. “No, I didn’t think so. Perhaps you need to stop thinking in terms of what you want, and start thinking in terms of what's best for her.”

“What's best for her is having a parent who doesn’t scare her half to death with their presence,” said Main Course.

"We fully intend to work with her and Lady Ebony to ensure that's the case," said Palomino, "but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be you."

"But... but... she calls me Daddy," he finished lamely, backing away. The reality that he may never see Scootaloo again was beginning to penetrate his initial denial.

"I'm sure our psychologists will find that detail encouraging. It implies that she'll be able to form an emotional bond with whoever she's assigned to." Palomino looked over to him, and his gaze softened. "I'm sorry. We don't like separating families, but sometimes we have to for the good of the foal. You may not believe me, but I really do want whatever's best for Scootaloo."

"This isn't over, you know. I won't give up that easily."

"Good," said Palomino, "You wouldn't be much of a candidate if you did." Another train pulled into the station, and ponies started to disembark. "My advice is that rather than just chasing after her without a plan, you step back and make yourself ready to be somepony who can actually be a decent father figure to her. That's the only chance you have. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to return to the office."

Main Course said nothing as the stallion boarded the train bound for Canterlot. He considered jumping onto it as well, but the agent's words held him back. A few minutes after it arrived, the train pulled away again. Main Course watched it recede further and further into the distance. Soon it was nothing more than a little dot on the horizon sending up a trail of smoke, and then even that was gone.

----------------------

The next few day weren’t a lot of fun. Silver Scroll more or less confirmed what Palomino had told him, and wasn’t very optimistic about their prospects for recovering Scootaloo. It devolved into a shouting match that her neighbors would probably be talking about for weeks. Later, when his temper had cooled a bit, he grudgingly admitted to himself that he owed his sister a major apology. After all, she’d been nothing but helpful since he got here. It was his own fault for underestimating Ebby’s desperation to get Scootaloo back.

When he eventually got around to bringing the news to the Carousel Boutique late that afternoon, he discovered that Sweetie Belle had already made a full report to Rarity. She was more than happy to retell the story, though.

“We’d all just come back inside after recess,” said Sweetie Belle. “Miss Cheerilee said we could do free drawing for a little bit because she needed to talk to Scootaloo out in the hallway. Scoots got real nervous because she thought she was in trouble for what we’d done to the swingset with all the glue.”

“Wait,” interrupted Rarity, “you didn’t mention anything about glue or a swingset when you were telling me this the first time.”

“Uh...” said Sweetie, suddenly much more fidgety than she’d been a moment ago, “that’s because it wasn’t relevant to the rest of the story! Yeah, that! Anyway, Cheerilee didn’t look angry, but she did look like she was really upset about something. Scootaloo followed her out into the hall and I was just asking Featherweight if he knew anything about what was happening when we heard her scream. Then she ran past the door and a grown up stallion in a suit was chasing her, and I guess they caught her because only Miss Cheerilee came back in. She told us it wasn’t anything we needed to worry about, but that Scootaloo wouldn’t be in class for at least the next couple days. She was really distracted for the rest of the afternoon, though, and she ended up letting us go home a bit early.”

Main Course sighed, and was about to reply when a loud crash came from the upstairs bedroom, followed by a stream of creative but muffled cursing. Rarity clamped her hooves over Sweetie Belle’s ears before it got especially bad, and a moment later Rainbow Dash appeared at the top of the stairs with a strand of purple ribbon stuck behind her ear. She fixated on Main Course and blitzed him from the top of the stairs, knocking him to the floor. “Where is she? How could you be so stupid? Why didn’t you come find me first? When did the train leave, maybe I can still catch it. Where’s that two-timing, double-crossing mare? I’ll kill her.”

“Rainbow, calm yourself,” said Rarity. “It’s safe to say that Scootaloo is not in any kind of immediate danger. We can work this out if you’ll be patient and—”

“No!” Rainbow Dash spun around and shouted in Rarity’s face. “We tried the patience thing. That’s why she’s gone now!” She fell to her knees and started to sniffle. “I... maybe if we’d let her stay home from school, kept her hidden, none of this would have happened.” She wiped at her eyes and glared at Main Course, still laying stunned on his back from the impact. “You better get her back, you understand? Otherwise I’m not gonna be held responsible when I go and do something really, really, stupid.”

“Uh huh,” said Main Course as the world around him slowly came back into focus, dominated by Rainbow Dash’s upside-down face staring daggers at him. He shook his head to clear away the last of the fogginess. “She’s okay, they’re taking her to the main foster home in Canterlot. I’m sure we’ll think of something, I just... I don’t know what yet.”

The three adults continued to argue. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle, who’d been momentarily forgotten, slipped out of the boutique.

---------------------------

“How are you feeling this evening, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo sat on the other side of the table from the pink unicorn, Doctor What’s-her-face, who was holding a thick file bearing the name Citrine. Everypony she’d talked to over the last few days was Doctor something or another, and Scootaloo was sick of answering their questions. Rather than making eye contact, Scootaloo looked away towards the large mirror set into one of the room’s powder-blue walls. She glanced back just long enough to stick her tongue out at the newest offender and crossed her forelegs over her chest.

The unicorn chuckled. “I suppose that’s understandable. The last couple of days must have been pretty disruptive and confusing for you. But please understand that we’re only pestering you because we wanted to make sure you were healthy, and the good news is that you are. A little thinner than we’d like, and your wings are a touch on the underdeveloped side, but nothing too serious or irreversible.”

“Fine,” said Scootaloo, “can I go home now?”

“Of course, just as soon as we figure out where ‘home’ is going to be,” said Doctor What’s-her-face.

“Ponyville,” Scootaloo immediately replied, “home is in Ponyville.”

“We’ll see. Now, I know that this next exercise is going to make you a little uncomfortable, but your mother is here.” Scootaloo stiffened and cringed. “We’d like you to try to open up a bit of a dialogue with her. We understand how intimidating she must be for you, but you won’t ever get past that if you don’t at least try to talk to her. We’ll start off with just a five-minute chat, and we won’t leave you alone with her. I’ll be right here the entire time. Nothing scary is going to happen just from talking.”

“Sounds like I don’t have much of a choice,” said Scootaloo.

“I suppose not. But what you can choose is how you’ll react to her presence. Think about that,” she said. Scootaloo didn’t get a chance to reply before the doctor walked over to the door and opened it. “Lady Ebony? We’re ready for you.”

Scootaloo was anything but ready when a moment later Ebby’s bashful, smiling face appeared in the doorway. “Hello, Citrine,” she said. She hesitated a moment before she stepped into the room and sat down across the table from her, while the doctor took a seat in the corner and pulled out a quill and notepad.

“...Hi,” Scootaloo eventually replied.

“I just want to start by saying that I’m sorry for everything I did to you, back then and now bringing you back here to Canterlot. I made a lot of mistakes,” said Ebby.

“No, you didn’t,” said Scootaloo. “A mistake is something you do because you don’t know any better, or you don’t understand a situation. That’s what Main Course and Rainbow Dash both told me, and they’re each ten times the pony you are. When you keep doing the same bad thing over and over again, you don’t get to keep calling it a mistake.”

Ebby gulped. “Things I regret, then. But the one thing I have never, ever regretted was having you for a daughter. I know sometimes when I was drunk I’d say things that probably made you feel like I did, but I didn’t. I know you’ve heard this before, but I’m not drinking anymore. I haven’t for over a year now.”

Scootaloo’s ears perked up a bit at that. “A year? Really?”

“Really,” said Ebby with a smile.

Scootaloo redoubled her pout. “Well, it’s too late. I have friends and a life in Ponyville. I go to school there. I have everything I need. Why would I want to come back here?”

“We can take trips to visit Ponyville together whenever you want. Besides, what about your friends here in Canterlot? You might not have seen them for a few years, but I’ll bet you’ll reconnect with them once you’re living here again. And wait until you see our new apartment. It’s not as big as our old house was, but it’s cozy. It’ll feel like home before you know it. We’ll pick up where we left off, and... well, I know you won’t ever forget how I treated you, then, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

“Really?” asked Scootaloo, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Whatever it takes?”

“Yes!” cried Ebby, leaning over the table reaching out a hoof towards Scootaloo. She made no move to take it.

“Then let me go back to Ponyville and never try to come see me again. Just go away, and this time stay away. I’d rather go back to living in the woods around town than move in with you again.”

Ebby slumped down over the surface of the table as Scootaloo’s words sunk in. “Please, sweetie, I want to be part of your life again. Just give me a chance to be a better mother to you.”

Scootaloo pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “I don’t have a mother,” she said. She looked over to the doctor in the corner of the room, who was furiously scribbling down notes. “That felt like it was about five minutes. Can I go back to my room now?”

Doctor What’s-her-face looked up, and saw the devastation writ across Ebby’s face as well as the determined way Scootaloo was staring down at the floor. “...Sure. We’ll try this again tomorrow, maybe for ten minutes this time.” She opened the door and led Scootaloo out down the hallway. Just as it slammed shut behind her, she heard Ebby begin to sob.

An hour later, Scootaloo lay on her bed in the little room that had been temporarily assigned to her. She stared up at the ceiling in the fading evening light. She was trying her hardest to be strong and brave, but she hated it here. The other foals were weird, and the ones who were close to her age didn’t seem eager to talk to her or sit with her at meals. Everypony there seemed to be just waiting for something, or resigned to the idea that it would never happen. It wasn’t a place she wanted to stay.

That was when she heard the tapping on her window.

Curious, she sat up and trotted over to it. She opened it up as far as she could and looked out through the wrought iron bars welded over the potential escape route. “Hello? Is somepony there?”

“Ah told you this was the right window,” said Applebloom’s voice from the bushes below.

“Twelfth time’s the charm, I guess,” said Sweetie Belle’s.

“Girls! Is that you? What are you doing here?” asked Scootaloo.

“Gettin’ our cutie marks in hostage extraction, of course,” said Applebloom, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

“Yeah, you didn’t think we were gonna let your mom keep you here, did you? All the stupid grown ups were arguing about what they should do, so we decided it was up to us to bust you out of here,” said Sweetie Belle. “The last train to Ponyville for the night leaves in an hour. We already got your ticket.”

“Great! You have no idea how glad I am to see you. Did you bring something to get through these bars?” asked Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom grinned at one another. “Oh, we brought something alright. Mah sister may have taken the book we borrowed from Twilight last week, but she didn’t get mah notes.” She scampered off towards the park situated next to the building.

“Get your stuff together, and, uh, you might want to stay away from this wall. And hide behind something,” added Sweetie Belle before she followed after her.

Scootaloo scampered over to her dresser and grabbed the saddlebags the orphanage had given her. She loaded them up with some of the snack food she’d snuck out of the dining hall and threw on the gray rain cloak since the weather report for the next few days called for rain. She was struggling with the clasp when she felt the building shake and a thin layer of plaster dust drifted down over her from the ceiling.

“Sorry!” called out Applebloom’s voice from outside. Another minute passed with Scootaloo huddled on the floor by the foot of her bed frame, and then her wall exploded inwards. The rock that had punched a hole in the brick wall just big enough for her to squeeze through broke into pieces as she coughed on the dust it had kicked up. She pressed herself through the hole as she heard somepony knocking on the door to her room, and bolted for the slope where the other two Crusaders were waiting for her, beckoning for her to hurry.

In the confusion, they had no trouble sneaking down to the train station. Few ponies were eager to pay attention to three little fillies when, to hear them tell it, either Nightmare Moon, Discord, or King Sombra had snuck into Canterlot. The dastardly fiend/fiends had even stooped so low as to bombard an orphanage, the rumors went. One panicky unicorn noble was clinging to the breastplate of one of the guards, begging them to protect him from the dark army of changelings he swore up and down he had personally witnessed marching on the capital.

Once they were comfortably situated on the train, Scootaloo hugged both of her friends in turn. “Thanks Sweetie, Apple Bloom,” she said, “I’m so glad to be going home again.” She let out a relieved sigh as they began to pull away from the platform. “I’m not sure where I’m going to stay, though.”

“Ah thought you’d stay with one of us, or go back to the Knoll,” said Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo shook her head. “Nah, they’ll come looking for me there if I do. I have to hide somewhere they won’t think to look or everypony will get into even more trouble.” She tapped her chin and thought for a few moments. “Sweetie, you know that cave down by the river, right? Rarity told me you hid in it the night when you ran away. I could stay there for a couple of days, if you could sneak out sometimes and bring me food and basic supplies once in awhile.”

Sweetie Belle nodded vigorously. “Uh huh! I know just where you mean. I’ll bring stuff by every afternoon.”

“Perfect. It’ll only be for a week or so until the search dies down, then... I don’t know.” She looked out the window at the city they were quickly pulling away from. “Anything’s better than coming back here again.”

---------------------------

“Equestria to Main Course. Helloooooooooooooo?”

Main Course snapped out of the fugue state as he felt a hoof tap gently against the back of his head. He looked down at the zucchini slices he’d been trying to sear, only to find that they’d burned beyond recognition a long time ago. He turned and saw Pinkie Pie standing behind him, carrying a small bowl of coleslaw and wearing a worried look on her face. “Sorry, Pinkie, I zoned out there for a second. What is it?”

“Table Ambystoma Cingulatum says their food doesn’t taste good, so I said ‘No way, seriously?’ and then they were all ‘Coleslaw isn’t supposed to taste like salt, Pinkie,’ and I was like ‘Well maybe it’s a super special kind of coleslaw that’s supposed to, but I’ll go ask,’ and then I came in here and I was like ‘Hey Main? Is this supposed to taste like this?’ but you didn’t answer so I poked you in the back of the head and I was like ‘Equestria to Main Course. Hellooooooo,’ except with more ‘o’s than that and then you turned around and were like ‘Sorry, Pinkie, I zoned out there for a second. What is it?’ and I started telling you that table—”

“I get the idea. Let me see,” he said. He scooped out a small spoonful of the slaw and stuck it into his mouth, then immediately spat it out again. “Ugh! I sent that out to a customer? That’s way too salty. Sorry, Pinkie, let me get them a new portion.” He pulled out the large bowl of coleslaw he’d prepared that morning, checked that he hadn’t screwed up the whole batch with a fresh spoon, and dug out a generous helping. “Here, you can bring this out to them.”

Pinkie didn’t move to take it. “Main Course, that’s the fifth time somepony’s sent something back tonight, and usually nopony ever sends stuff back. Is this because of what happened with Scootaloo yesterday? Do you want to talk about it? Because the only kind of party I don’t like is a pity party.”

“No, not really. Now’s not the time, anyway,” said Main Course.

“Well... okay, if you say so,” she said. Main Course turned back around, but then felt Pinkie wrap her forelegs around his neck and pull him into a hug anyway. “I know this is is probably a health code violation because Twilight taught me all about those the time when I got Fluttershy’s animals to help me run the bakery, but I promise I won’t tell anypony I gave you a hug if you don’t.”

Instead of protesting, Main Course closed his eyes and leaned into the hug. “Deal. The secret’s safe with me. Thanks, Pinkie, that really does help.”

“Of course it did! Hugs always help, silly,” she said with a giggle. “Promise me you’ll feel better.”

“Pinkie, I can’t just promise that I’ll...” he trailed off as he saw the big, trembling, puppy-dog-eyed look she was giving him, and sighed. “Alright, I promise that I’ll feel better.”

“You’d better, mister! Or else I’m gonna make you feel better,” she exclaimed as she left the kitchen with the coleslaw to get back to work. Main Course looked into the dining area through the service window. The Knoll was half-empty, and the waitstaff was milling about without very much to do. Rain usually kept customers away, and the pegasi were starting spring off with several days of it. Still, at least it fit the mood he was in.

Just as he was about to turn back to his cooking, he happened to glance up at a flicker of movement from the front door. The last mare he’d ever expected to see again opened up the front door and, ignoring the hostess’ attempt to seat her, trotted over to the window where Main was standing, dumbfounded.

“You’ve got some nerve, Ebby,” he said when he got over his initial shock. “Get out of my restaurant.”

Ebby peeled back the hood of the heavy rain cloak she wore. “Is she here? I just need to know if she’s here.”

There was zero doubt in his mind about whom she was referring to. “Is this some sort of sick joke? Because I’m not laughing.”

Ebby shook her head. “Somepony broke down the wall to her room the other night, with a trebuchet of all things. It’s a miracle nopony was hurt, but she’s missing. The Guard is searching Canterlot, but I thought she might have come back here instead. She said something about...” she trailed off for a moment before finding the strength to continue, “...she said she’d rather live in the woods around here than with me. Please, I just need to know that she’s somewhere safe.”

“Did you say with a trebuchet?” asked Main Course, then shook his head. “She’s not here. Even if she were I wouldn’t tell you she was, but she really isn’t.”

“Well, I’m not leaving until I find her or I get word that she’s safe. I’m going into the woods to see if she's there. If she’s hiding out at somepony’s house that isn’t such a big deal, but if there’s even a chance she’s out there in this weather I’m not leaving her alone. Would, um, do you think you could help me look?” She winced even as she asked.

“Absolutely not. I don’t want her out there alone either, but I trust her to survive on her own more than I trust you if you do find her. You want to help? Stay out of both our lives. Besides, I have a dinner rush that’ll start in a half-hour.”

Ebby looked at him with pleading eyes. “I can’t. I can’t sit around doing nothing while she slips away from me. I don’t want to hurt her, or you. I just want a fair chance to patch things up with her, but she’s just so stubborn! She digs in and won’t give even an inch no matter what I say or do. Her father was the same way, when he set his mind to something.”

Main Course allowed himself a little smile. “You should have seen her the night I showed her how to make fillo dough. Of course she kept tearing it, nopony gets it on the first try. I told her that, but then I woke up at three in the morning and saw that the lights were on in the kitchen. When I came down to turn them off I found her hunched over the counter trying to get it right. She went through ninety pounds of flour that night before I discovered her, and I had to physically carry her up to bed while she kept insisting that she almost had it. She was asleep on my shoulder before I got to the top of the stairs."

Ebby smiled, and the animosity permeating the room faded for a moment. "That's why. That's why I need to be her mother again. I've missed too many moments like that already, I refuse to miss any more."

"I know exactly how you feel," said Main Course. "I'm still not going to help you find her."

Ebby glared at him, but then gave a curt nod. "Then I guess I'm on my own again." She turned to walk away, then stopped. "When I do find her... I'll make sure you at least get to say goodbye this time. The way I did it before wasn't fair to either of you. I'm sorry, for all the good that does." She tightened her cloak around herself and walked back out the way she came.

Main Course waited for a minute to make sure she wasn’t coming back. “Pinkie?” he asked.

“What’s up?” asked Pinkie’s voice from behind him. He didn’t even wonder when she’d gotten back into the kitchen.

“Stop seating ponies when they come in. I’m pushing out the food they’ve already ordered, then shutting down.”

“But dinner—”

“Is cancelled,” interrupted Main Course. “I’m wrapping this up, and then I need to head over to Rarity’s boutique. There’s a little filly there who knows more than she’s saying.”

----------------------

Scootaloo yanked up a few more dandelions from the clearing, doing her best to ignore the biting cold that was seeping past her coat. Over the last few days the cloak she’d brought with her had gotten caught and snagged as she moved about in the woods. She could no longer rely on its protection against the forces of nature. It was almost dark, and she just needed to pick a few more for breakfast tomorrow and she could head back to the shelter and relative comfort of her cave. At least it was dry.

Her ears perked up as she heard a new sound, under the driving rain and winds.

“Citrine? Citrine, are you out here?”

Scootaloo began to shiver again, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold. Nowhere was safe. Even here, Ebby had somehow managed to track her down. She felt a knot of anger, panic, and hatred twist up in her chest. Even worse, the voice was coming from the direction of her cave, cutting her off from safety.

She bolted for the cover of the trees, but stumbled when she stepped into a deceptively deep puddle and fell with a loud splash. The noise brought with it unwanted attention. There was the sound of hoofbeats and cracking branches as she half-galloped-half-waded to the edge of the puddle.

“It is you! Oh, thank the Princesses,” said the voice behind her. Scootaloo slowly turned, and sure enough, there was her mother at the edge of the clearing.

“Why can’t I get rid of you?” asked Scootaloo. “Why can’t you just let me be happy?”

“I didn’t know what happened to you,” said Ebby, “when they came to my door and told me that a wall in your room had collapsed and they couldn’t find you, all I could think about was how you could be hurt, or worse. I could never live with myself if something had happened to you.”

“Well, here I am. I’m fine. Goodbye now.”

“Just try to meet me halfway on this. All I want is a chance. If you could just remember the good times, too. We could go back to that, I swear. We can be a family again, just the two of us.

“Just the two of us?” asked Scootaloo. “I knew it, you want to take me away from all the other ponies I love. I won’t let you! Leave me alone!” With no other options open to her, Scootaloo turned back towards the trees and ran as fast as her legs would carry her.

“Citrine, please! That’s not what I meant! Come back!”

She ignored her mother’s pleas, pushing through the foliage and ducking under branches. The gloomy twilight and the rain conspired together to keep her from seeing more than a few lengths in any particular direction. All she knew was that she had to flee from the sounds behind her. Without warning, the edge of the forest appeared and she was out of the trees. She only just stopped before she went over the drop; before her was a dead end and a six meter drop into the muddy river below, and with the all the rain they’d had over the last few days it was churning and flowing much more quickly than usual. There wasn’t anywhere for her to go. She wouldn’t get far running parallel to it before Ebby caught up with her.

“Thank Celestia,” said Ebby as she emerged from the trees panting for breath. Much too close for Scootaloo’s liking.

“Go away! I don’t want to go back again, and I don’t want to be part of your family if I have to leave Ponyville,” she screamed over the falling rain.

“I could stay here. Get a little apartment, maybe travel back and forth when we needed to. You could still see your friends, you would just be living with me instead of Main Course.”

“I DON’T WANT TO LIVE WITH YOU! I WANT YOU TO GO AWAY! WHY IS THAT SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?” screamed Scootaloo, stomping her hoof in the loose, muddy dirt by the edge.

“I’m not going to go away,” said Ebby. “I love you too much. We’ll find a way to make this work, though. Why don’t we go back to Main Course’s restaurant, dry off, and talk about it there? I bet he’d make us some hot chocolate if you asked nicely.” She took a few steps closer to the edge. Mother and daughter were both just inches away from going over the side. Scootaloo stared up at her mother, almost close enough to reach out and touch her.

“I have nothing to say to you,” said Scootaloo. “I’ll be fine here in the forest. Just go away.”

“At least let me take you back to town before you catch a—”

“I said go away!” she shouted.

And then Scootaloo stomped her hoof on the ground one time too many.

A chunk of muddy earth, already heavy from soaking up so much water over the last few days, began to shift under their hooves as it detached itself from the cliff face. Scootaloo barely even had time to react before she felt herself beginning to fall, but then her descent halted and the world around her glowed orange. She got a brief glimpse of Ebby’s horn shimmering before her body was tossed back onto solid ground, where the soggy grass cushioned some of the blow of her landing.

Ebby herself wasn’t as lucky. She cried out as her hooves lost purchase and she plunged towards the water below. She flailed for anything to hold onto and managed to hook a foreleg around the root of a nearby tree, freshly exposed by the mudslide. It creaked and groaned under the new weight hanging from it, but for the moment it held.

Scootaloo rushed over to the edge and looked down on her mother dangling precariously from the little shoot of wood. Ebby grunted and try to hoist herself up enough to get a hoof over the edge. Her rear legs kicked against the muddy cliff wall helplessly. Her foreleg wouldn’t reach quite far enough. “Citrine, grab my hoof and help me up, okay?”

Scootaloo reached a foreleg towards her outstretched one.

Then she paused. Slowly, she pulled it back. “I’m sorry. I just wanted you to go away. Why didn’t you just listen to me?”

Ebby’s hopeful smile disappeared, replaced by confusion. “We can talk about that when I get back up. I just need a little boost.” Something inside the cliff face made a sharp cracking sound. “Hurry.”

Scootaloo shook her head, and inched back from the edge. “You’re gonna go away now. You won’t be able to take me away again.”

Ebby went pale. “No. No, Citrine, please don’t do this. Please help me up, and I promise—”

“I’m tired of your promises,” interrupted Scootaloo. “You say you want to be my mother, but you don’t even call me by my real name.” She turned and began to walk back towards the treeline.

“Citrine,” her mother’s voice called after her. Scootaloo ignored it. “Citrine! ...Scootaloo!” Just a few more steps, and she was in the trees again. She pressed her back against a tree trunk and tried to block out her mother’s tearful screams for help. They seemed to go on and on, dragging her mind right back to being in her old bedroom while Ebby pounded on the door. Just like back then, if she just hid and stayed quiet long enough it would be over soon, and this time forever. Finally, there was a loud, wet snapping sound, and then a splash as something heavy hit the water. Scootaloo gasped and covered her head as she began to cry, overwhelmed with equal parts guilt and relief for what she’d just done.

“Geez, Ebby. For such a skinny mare, you’re really heavy.” Scootaloo spun around and looked out from behind her tree as Main Course’s voice pierced her hazy mind. There he was, laying belly-down in the mud with his foreleg reaching down the face of the cliff, straining as he heaved upward. A shaky orange hoof appeared from below, and dug into the slick ground with newfound determination and resolve. With one more yank Ebby’s upper half landed on the grass, the rain beating down on her cloak as she wriggled the rest of the way up on her own. “What happened to you?” he asked her. Scootaloo’s eyes met her mother’s. The look she was giving her wasn’t angry, but Scootaloo had never seen so much utter despair in a pony’s eyes before.

“I...” began Ebby. She looked at Scootaloo again. Main Course was too fixated on Ebby to have noticed her yet. “...I was looking for Scootaloo, and I slipped,” she said. “It’s a good thing you found me when you did. How did you know I was here?”

“Her friend Sweetie Belle told me where Scootaloo’s hiding. Then I heard you screaming and I came running. You’re never going to win Scootaloo back if you go getting yourself killed, right? What’s she going to do without a mom?”

Scootaloo stared at the pair in front of her. Did Main not know what she had done? That she’d tried to take Scootaloo away from him forever? “Daddy?” she asked.

Main’s head whipped around, and he galloped over to her. “Scootaloo, there you are.” He grabbed her up in a hug. “Are you okay? I missed you so much while you were gone!”

“Did you just... help Mom?” she asked. “Even though she took me away?”

“Well sure, how else are you two going to work things out?”

Scootaloo jumped up and hugged him. “I wanna go home now.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Main Course. “Come on, Ebby. Let’s all go home.”

----------------------

It took Main Course nearly an hour to settle Scootaloo down enough that she finally fell asleep. He sat next to her for a long time after she finally drifted off, watching the blankets rise and fall with each little breath she took. She looked so peaceful, and he envied her temporary escape from the uncertainty she’d face when she woke up. Still, he knew he was just putting off talking to Ebby again. She hadn’t said anything on the walk back to the Knoll, she’d just stared at the back of Scootaloo’s head. Scootaloo had not once looked back at her.

When he finally did go downstairs, he found her sitting at a table still wearing her dripping-wet raincloak and covered in mud. A few sticks and pieces of bark poked out of her mane. Before he could suggest that she take off the cloak and hang it to dry, he noticed what was on the table itself.

An empty wineglass was situated in the middle of it, and Ebby had her hoof sitting on a bottle of red wine laying on its side. She rolled it slowly back and forth over the table’s surface, listening to the sloshing liquid as she did. “Ebby, what are you doing?” he asked cautiously.

Ebby kept watching the bottle for a minute longer, then looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and sniffled. “Do you remember where you woke up four hundred and eighty-four days ago?”

Main Course tilted his head at the apparent non-sequitur. “What does that have to do with—”

“I do,” she interrupted. “I’ll never forget. When I came to that morning, after doing Celestia-knows-what the night before, I was laying between two garbage bags next to a puddle of vomit in an alleyway behind a bar near where I used to live. Do you want to know the very first thing that went through my head was, once I was coherent enough to think again?”

“...Sure,” said Main Course, watching the way she was pulling the bottle close against her side.

“It was ‘I’m exactly where I belong.’ That’s how I felt. I was garbage. Worse than garbage. My daughter had been missing for a year, my husband thought I was beneath contempt, and every drink I took numbed the pain even as I hated myself a bit more with each sip. That’s when I decided that I was done. That wasn’t the pony I wanted to be anymore.”

Main Course walked over to her and laid a foreleg over her shoulder, but he wasn’t even sure she noticed. “Why don’t you give me the wine, okay?” he asked. He tried to take it, but she held firm.

“I haven’t had a single drop since. I figured that was rock bottom. It’s been hard, Main. It’s been so, so hard. When I told Obsidian I was quitting, do you know what he did? He laughed at me. He told me I was a pathetic drunk and I always would be. That if it weren’t for him I’d be in a gutter, or jail.” She scoffed at the memory. “I had a lawyer draw up the divorce papers the next day.”

“How’d he take that?” asked Main Course.

“He didn’t think I was serious. Wouldn’t sign them, and told me if I sued for divorce he would drag me through court for years and leave me bitless.” She glanced up at him. “So the third time I ‘asked’ I came up behind him when he was reading something, put a knife to his throat, and told him he could sign the papers and give me a decent chunk of his money, or he could bleed to death on the floor of his den and the whole world would hear about what an abusive bastard he was.”

Main Course recoiled in horror. “Holy buck, Ebby, what were you thinking?”

“I was desperate,” she said and then grew quiet. “If I stayed where I was I’d be dead by now. I didn’t have anything to lose.”

“I don’t want to hear you talking like that,” said Main.

“It worked out. He decided to sign the papers. Ever the pragmatist, that one. So I took the hush money and we went our separate ways. It wasn’t easy. A lot of ponies I was counting on to stand by me chose him instead. So I invested the money and downgraded my life until I’d be able to live off the interest it earned if I absolutely have to.”

Main Course couldn’t help but grumble a bit. “Must be nice, not needing to earn a living.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” asked Ebby, smiling for the first time since he’d pulled her up from the edge of the cliff. “But it just left me more time on my hooves than I really knew what to do with. I wasn’t a mother anymore, or a wife. I filled the days with volunteer stuff as best I could, even tried my hoof at doing some writing. But no matter what I did, there was still this... this pressure in the back of my head. Any time somepony at a party offered me a drink, or I walked past a liquor store, or somepony mentioned that they’d gone to see a vineyard, all kinds of things would bring it out. The impulse to get drunk again, and spend a night just not caring. Because caring hurt, Main. It hurt a lot. But I figured out how to push back against it. A little mantra.”

“What was it?”

“I’d think to myself, ‘imagine how proud Citrine would be if she could see you now,’” said Ebby, a fresh tear running down her cheek. “‘You’re finally keeping that promise you made to her so many times. If she were here, she’d run up to you and give you a hug.’ I knew in my heart that she was out there, somewhere. I imagined a reunion happening a thousand different ways. Four hundred and eighty-four times now I’ve woken up and thought to myself, ‘you can’t have a drink today, because today might be the day everything finally starts to get better. You don’t want to be drunk when it does.’ And then one day I’m getting fitted for a dress and it happens.”

“I guess that wasn’t how you’d hoped it would go,” said Main Course, handing her a napkin.

She blew her nose on it. “I was so stupid. Why did I delude myself into believing I deserved a happy ending? It took me until tonight to realize just how awful I really was. What do I have to look forward to now? She doesn’t want me in her life, and why should she? I had a chance to show her I was different. I blew it. I’m so tired of fighting, and now I don’t even have anything to fight for. Still, four hundred eighty-four days, right?” Her horn glowed, and the cork of the bottle resonated with orange magic as it yanked itself out with a pop. “I guess it was a good run while it lasted.”

“Give me the bottle, Ebby,” said Main Course.

“No. I need it. I’ll just have one glass, then I’ll stop again. I just need one glass.”

Main Course yanked the bottle out of her hooves and held it out of reach. “I’ve known enough alcoholics to know there is no ‘just one glass.’ I won’t watch you do this to yourself.”

She sneered at him. “Nopony asked you to watch. Just give me the bottle and walk away. How I live my life isn’t your problem, or your business.” When Main Course didn’t reply, she slammed her hoof down on the table with a bang, making the wineglass wobble. “I said give it to me!”

“And I said no. Deal with it.”

“I’ll pay you,” she pleaded. “I just told you I have money, right? Name your price. You want to charge me a thousand bits for the glass? I’ll cut you a check right now. It’s not like your restaurant is the only place to get it. I can always go somewhere else.”

Main Course raised a skeptical eyebrow. “In Ponyville? In the middle of the night? Not really. But fine, you want to throw yourself off the wagon? I’ll let you.” He reached over and poured, filling the wineglass nearly to the top.

“Thank you, Main,” said Ebby, reaching out a hoof to take it.

“Not so fast,” said Main Course, sliding it away from her. “You said name my price? My price is your daughter.”

Ebby stared at him, her jaw hanging slack as his words registered. “What do you mean?”

“If you drink that, it’s going to cost you her one way or another. I don’t want to see her get dragged back to Canterlot and stuffed into a foster home again, or make her watch you deteriorate back into a drunk. So first thing tomorrow you come down to Town Hall with me and sign away any claim you might have to her, forever. Then you walk out of our lives and, I don’t care, die in a gutter like your ex-husband thought you would.”

Ebby began to shake. “That’s... that’s cruel, Main. Besides, even if I agreed to do that what really makes you think I’d follow through?” She got a wild look in her eyes and began to rub her temples with her hooves. “I’ll... I’ll just take her back to Canterlot. Nopony ever has to know I drank a little bit. Even if you told them, I’d just say you’re lying. They won’t have any reason to believe you.”

“But you’ll know,” said Main Course. “You’ll know when it comes down to your daughter or alcohol that you won’t do the right thing. And I think you care about her too much to put her through that again. Better for her if you just disappear and she’s left wondering. I promise I’ll take good care of her.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and her chest began to to heave. “Please don’t. Please don’t make me choose like that. It isn’t fair.”

“It’s the choice you’re going to need to make every day for the rest of your life anyway. I’m just spelling it out for you. So what’s it going to be?” asked Main Course.

Ebby stared into his eyes, looking for any hint of a reprieve. There was none. “I want to do the right thing, Main. I want to do what’s right for her. But it’s so hard.” Ever so slowly, she reached for the glass of wine and brought it up to her face. The room fell silent as she stared down into it. So silent, both ponies could hear the tiny splash her teardrop made as it struck the surface of the wine. She cradled the glass, shuddering with excitement as she inhaled the fumes coming off of it.

“Well, I guess that’s your choice then,” said Main. Ebby glared at him, but didn’t reply. “Any final message you want me to pass on to the filly you’re never going to see again?”

“Tell her...” Ebby’s hooves were shaking so badly a few droplets of wine spilled onto the table. “Tell her I’m...” She tensed up and her breathing became heavier, coming in ragged pants through her gritted teeth. “I’m...” Her eyes went wide, darting frantically back and forth between the glass of wine and Main Course.

She let out an ear-splitting scream of defiant frustration and smashed the wineglass down onto the table. It shattered and sent wine mixed with shards of broken glass in every direction. She stared down at her cut and bleeding hoof, and the red wine that was slowly staining the white tablecloth a dark shade of pink. Then she turned to Main, an exhausted but joyful expression on her face. “I’m not thirsty,” she said. She slumped down to her knees and laid her cheek on the tablecloth.

“I’m proud of you, Ebby,” said Main Course quietly. He reached under her cloak and rubbed the back of her neck. Wordlessly, she reached up with her uncut foreleg and grabbed his hoof, clinging to it as desperately as she had the tree root earlier that night.

“Sorry about your tablecloth. I’m not usually that much of a drama queen.” She chuckled, but then grew serious again. “Do you love her, Main? Really love her? I already know the answer, but I need to hear you say it.”

“Yeah,” he answered immediately. “Yeah, I really do.”

“I’ve tried so hard to keep myself under control. I came close to the edge like that too many times. That’s no way to raise a foal. I need to give her more space if she’s ever going to accept me being in her life again,” said Ebby, wiping away a tear. “Can I ask you for another favor? I already owe you so much, I know, but I think you’ll be okay with this one. I need you to take Scootaloo back. I’ll get a little place here in Ponyville, somewhere far enough away that she won’t feel like I’m hovering. I’ll even tell Foal Protective Services I’m giving her up to you so that won’t be hanging over her head.”

“Ebby, that’s a big deal,” said Main Course. “If you give her up, you can’t just change your mind later. You won’t be her mother anymore.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t been her mother for a long time. It’s time I admitted that. But... even if she never speaks to me again, could you maybe meet me for lunch in town once in awhile? Tell me about what she’s doing? What she’s learning in school, and who she has a crush on, and what her dreams for the future are? Even if I never get any more than that, it would be enough just to know she’s happy.”

“Of course I will. I’m sure Scootaloo will come around,” said Main Course.

“I wish I believed you,” she muttered. She got up and wiped the blood off her leg before limping away from the table towards the front door. “She’ll be happier if I’m not here when she wakes up. I’ll see you tomorrow?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked out into the rain and out of sight.

Day 485 and Counting

DAY 485 AND COUNTING

Four ponies rendezvoused in front of Town Hall late the following afternoon.

By the time Main Course and Scootaloo arrived, Silver Scroll was already waiting for them carrying saddlebags that were bulging with all sorts of forms. “So, you’re Dad’s sister? Hi,” said Scootaloo.

Silver Scroll chuckled. “It’s gonna take me a little while to get used to hearing him being called ‘Dad,’ but it’s nice to finally meet you, Scootaloo.”

“It’s going to be even weirder when she starts calling you Aunt Silver,” said Main Course with a grin of his own.

Silver Scroll’s jaw dropped. “Omigosh, I didn’t even think about that! An aunt! I’m gonna be an aunt!” She scooped Scootaloo up off the ground and hugged her. “Oh, I am going to spoil you rotten when Main isn’t paying attention. I have so many embarrassing stories about him from when he was your age.”

Main Course rolled his eyes as Scootaloo giggled at the attention. “Could we maybe hold off on undermining my authority until I actually have some authority to undermine?”

“Nope!” declared Silver Scroll. “Scootaloo, when’s your birthday? What sort of present do you want? How about a set of drums? Very loud drums. Or a gong. Oh! And we have to go flying together sometime. Rainbow Dash told me how good you’re getting, and I’d love to take you up one afternoon after school, doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“Her birthday is late next month. Same day as mine.” The three of them turned and saw Ebby standing a little ways away in a dress that matched the color of her coat, watching the scene with a pained smile on her face. “Hi Main Course. Hi... Scootaloo. And you must be Silver Scroll.”

Scootaloo tightened her grip on Silver Scroll. “Lady Ebony. It’s nice to meet you as well.”

“Please, it’s just Ebby,” she said, waving off the formality with her foreleg. She gave Scootaloo a meaningful look. “That goes for you too. You can call me whatever you want to.”

Scootaloo was silent for a second, but then let go of Silver and to Main’s surprise took a few cautious steps towards Ebby. “Dad says that after today, you aren’t going to try to take me away any more,” she said.

“No, I won’t,” said Ebby. “I’ll still be here in town a lot of the time, and I may come over to talk to Main Course occasionally, but only when you aren’t there.”

“I don’t understand, though,” said Scootaloo. She kicked at the ground with her hoof. “Last night...”

“What about it, Scootaloo?” asked Main Course as she trailed off. He saw Scootaloo shudder a bit, but she didn’t answer him.

Ebby trotted over to her. She paused for just a second, then knelt down and wrapped Scootaloo in a hug of her own. Scootaloo stiffened, but she didn’t try to pull away. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”

“But I—”

Ebby cut her off with a hoof placed gently over Scootaloo’s mouth. “Let’s not dwell on that right now. There’ll be time for that later. You can tell... your dad when it’s just the two of you.” She sighed. “Scootaloo, I’ve been falling for a very long time. And when I saw you again, I thought that if I just... if I just clung to you as hard as I could you could save me and everything would be right again. But all I was doing was dragging you down with me. I’m not going to hold you back anymore, okay?” She sniffled and wiped away a tear as her pendant jangled against her chest. “I don’t want you to be afraid all the time. That’s more important to me than anything. Because I know that once you aren’t afraid, you’re going to soar.” Ebby planted a gentle kiss on Scootaloo’s forehead. “I love you always, Scootaloo. That won’t ever change.” With that, she released Scootaloo and walked past Main and Silver Scroll into Town Hall.

Main Course walked over to where Scootaloo was still sitting frozen in the middle of the street. “Scoots, if you don’t want to do this right now, you can sign the papers later on.”

“No,” said Scootaloo. She turned to follow Ebby inside. “Let’s get this over with.”

Mayor Mare was waiting for them in a conference room off the main lobby. “Silver, you’ve brought the necessary paperwork, I presume?” she asked as the other four settled around the table. Scootaloo scootched her chair over to get closer to Main’s.

“I have, Mayor,” said Silver Scroll. She opened up her bags and pulled out three distinct sheafs of paper. “This first one is the emancipation forms, that goes to Ebby.” She slid the papers across the table along with a quill. Ebby stared down at the papers without moving.

“If you’re having second thoughts now’s the time to say so, Lady Glimmer,” said the mayor. “Once these are filed, all of your legal rights towards Scootaloo will be terminated irrevocably.”

“I know. I just... I need a minute,” said Ebby.

“Take your time,” said Main Course, pulling Scootaloo closer to his side. Scootaloo’s eyes never left the papers.

Ebby took a deep breath, and lifted the quill in her magic. She squeezed her eyes shut as she signed at the bottom of the forms, then pushed them back to Silver. When she opened her eyes again, a little bit of the life that had been in them before was gone.

“Moving on then,” said Silver, her voice was steady but her hooves trembled slightly as she looked over the signed form and slipped it back into the stack. “Scootaloo, you and Main Course both need to sign this second one. It’s a change of name form. The emancipation paperwork was under the name ‘Citrine,’ but I drew the adoption forms up under the name Scootaloo. Time to make the switch official and legal.”

“Okay,” said Scootaloo. She grabbed the quill, but then paused. "Uh, which name am I supposed to write?"

“Write Citrine,” said Ebby before Silver Scroll could respond. She looked up at Scootaloo. “Please?”

Scootaloo frowned. “No,” she replied and scribbled her real name across the bottom of the form. Ebby slumped down a bit lower in her seat.

As Silver Scroll took the papers back, the door opened to reveal a panting, disheveled Agent Palomino standing there.

“You are late,” said Mayor Mare, not bothering to glance up from the papers she was reviewing.

“Ran... from the train...” he wheezed. “Would have been nice... to have a bit more notice.”

“Yes, that would have been a nice courtesy, had I chosen to extend it,” said the mayor. “Then again, it would have been nice to be informed before agents from Canterlot showed up at our schoolhouse rather than being blindsided by concerned parents wondering why their foals’ classmate was being abducted. So I suppose we’re even.”

“Thank you for coming so quickly, though,” said Main Course. Antagonizing an agent from Foal Protective Services right at the moment seemed ill-advised to him.

Judging by the glare he got in return, it wasn’t working as intended. “My boss’ boss’ boss got a letter directly from Princess Sparkle, which ‘politely suggested’ that we sign off on the little arrangement you two seem to have reached. Your case became something of a priority.”

Main Course grinned despite his best efforts to remain stoic. Rarity’s and Rainbow Dash’s connection to Twilight Sparkle had ended up coming in handy after all. “Well, here’s the guardian appointment paperwork. I assume you know where to sign,” said Silver Scroll.

“Just pass me the quill,” said Palomino. He glanced over at Main Course and Scootaloo. “Don’t think that just because you’re friends with a princess we’re giving you carte blanche. We’re still going to be following up and making sure you’re providing her with a good home.”

“Drop by any time. I’ll even feed your inspector.”

“Rat poison sandwich with a cyanide dipping sauce, I bet,” he said, but he smiled as he did. He finished signing the last line with a little flourish and then passed the papers back to Scootaloo and Main Course. “Seriously, though, congratulations you two. I’m glad it worked out for everypony. It usually doesn’t.”

Main Course looked over at Ebby, still slouched in her seat gazing at the wall. He couldn’t agree that it had worked out for everypony. “Thanks. I’ll take good care of her.”

Agent Palomino dug into his vest pocket and pulled out a small card. He slid it across the table to Main Course, who took it and examined it. The only information on it was a name, Briggs Inkblot, and an address. “What’s this?”

“He’s a local specialist our department has worked with before. A psychologist. We’d like you to talk to him,” said Palomino.

Scootaloo bristled. “I’m not crazy.”

“Nopony’s saying you’re crazy, Scootaloo. But you’ve been through a lot these last couple of years. It wouldn’t hurt,” said Main Course.

“Consider it a condition of our releasing you into Main Course’s custody,” said Palomino. “Oh, and that ‘you’ was plural, by the way.”

“Wait, you want me to talk to him too?” asked Main. “Why?”

“Because my department is not in the habit of releasing orphans into the custody of the psychologically unhinged, royal friends or no. You need evaluation,” said Palomino.

“I’ll show you psychologically unhinged,” muttered Main Course under his breath.

Silver Scroll leaned over and smacked him upside the head. “Main! Not helping! How about setting a good example, hmm?”

Trapped between the collective authority of the Equestrian government and, even worse, his younger sister, Main Course knew when he’d been beaten.

By the time Scootaloo and Main Course finished signing everywhere Silver Scroll indicated on the pile of forms, both of their jaws were cramping up. Ebby hadn’t said a single word, or even managed to bring herself to look at them. Agent Palomino had left a while back, mumbling something about a total waste of a day. “All done. That wasn’t too painful, was it?” asked Silver Scroll. “Technically these won’t kick in for a couple of days since they haven’t been processed yet, but let me be the first to congratulate you on becoming a new family.”

“Silver?” asked Ebby. It came out raspy and she coughed to clear her throat before repeating herself. “Silver, could you stick around for a couple minutes? I have a few quick questions about finding an apartment nearby.”

“Sure thing,” she replied. “Main, it’s getting kinda late...”

Main Course glanced up at the clock. Sure enough, it was already after six. “Come on Scootaloo, let’s get back to the Knoll.”

The newly minted father-daughter pair trotted back towards their restaurant. “Do you have enough time to get ready for dinner?” asked Scootaloo as they approached the Knoll. “I could, um, I could help...”

“It’s sweet of you to offer, Scoots. Somepony actually reserved the whole restaurant for a party tonight,” said Main Course as he opened the front door.

“SURPRISE!”

Scootaloo shrieked and scampered underneath Main Course as the lights came up. She peeked out just in time to see the ‘WELCOME HOME SCOOTALOO’ banner unfurl from the ceiling. Main Course grinned. “And here they are now.”

“Were you scared? Were you surprised? Were you both? Were you neither?” asked Pinkie as she bounced over to them. The other ponies gathered in the dining room all began laughing and chatting with one another around the buffet table that was stacked with cakes and pastries.

Once Scootaloo had stopped hyperventilating, she smiled and gave Pinkie a hug. “Wow! This is awesome! Thank you, Pinkie.”

“You’re welcome!” replied Pinkie. “Come on, everypony wants to say hi to the guest of honor.” Pinkie led Scootaloo off towards the approaching Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash, and Main Course smiled as she jumped up and gave Rainbow Dash a big hug.

“It must feel nice,” said Rarity’s voice from behind him. Main Course turned to face her, stepping nimbly aside as Sweetie Belle rushed past him to join the others.

“It does. After everything that’s happened this last week it’s a huge weight off my mind. A part of me still can’t believe it’s really happening. I just hope I’m cut out for what comes next.”

“From what I’ve seen, I can’t imagine a better father for her,” said Rarity as she took a sip from her glass of punch. “How did Ebony take it?”

Main’s grin slipped a bit. “As well as can be expected, I guess. I think she’s looking for a permanent place to stay here in Ponyville.”

“Do you trust her to keep her word and not try to contact her daughter?” she asked.

Main Course thought about that for a minute. “I think she knows that backing off is her best chance of ever getting Scootaloo to forgive her. And honestly, I hope she’s right. Am I stupid for thinking Ebby isn’t really such a bad pony despite everything she’s done?”

“Maybe,” said Rarity, “If she is planning to stick around I really must invite her over for tea sometime, I’ll make up my mind after I’ve spoken to her again. One way or another, the poor dear needs a friend right now. But you need to put Scootaloo’s welfare first. You’re her father now, and that means making certain sacrifices in regards to your personal life. If you have to choose one over the other, well, that’s a choice you’ve already made, isn’t it?” She smiled. “Come on now, this is a happy day for you two. No need to spoil it.” She took his hoof and led him over to where Scootaloo was talking to the assembled ponies around her.

“Dad! Look at what Rainbow Dash gave me!” She proudly held up a signed Wonderbolts poster for him to see. “Can we hang it in my room?”

“Well, we still need to paint it first now that you’ll be there permanently, but sure.”

“Ooh! We could help paint,” said Sweetie Belle.

“No,” said Rarity and Main Course in unison. Main Course cleared his throat. “I mean, uh, we’ll find some other way for you to help, how’s that sound?”

"Aww, but painting the sets for the school play was so much fun," moaned Sweetie Belle.

"What school play?" asked Main Course.

Scootaloo glared at Sweetie Belle. "Just a stupid play about vegetables that we weren't going to talk about because it's lame and I didn't want to be in it anyway."

"But Miss Cheerilee said there were still parts you could play when you came back. It'll be fun."

"I think Sweetie is right, Scoots," said Main Course. "You should at least consider it."

Scootaloo looked up at him, then back at the pleading looks her friends were giving her. She sighed. "Fine."

"Cutie Mark Crusader thespians, yay!" shouted Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, hugging Scootaloo from either side.

"What are those?" asked Scootaloo.

"Ah guess all the really good actors come from somewhere called Thespia," explained Apple Bloom.

The party carried on into the night, with a whole procession of ponies coming over to Scootaloo and Main Course to congratulate them. When Main Course tried to slip away into the kitchen to catch a breather, he was promptly busted by Pinkie Pie who exiled him right back out into the crowd with an order to enjoy himself. Eventually he saw Silver Scroll arrive and went to greet her.

“Silver, you made it! Clear everything up for Ebby?” he asked.

Silver Scroll gave him a funny look. “Main, she didn’t have questions about an apartment. Once you, Scootaloo, and Mayor Mare left, she pretty much broke down. She wanted a shoulder to cry on. I’m surprised she held herself together in there as long as she did.” The good time Main Course had been having slipped away. Of course she did, the mare had just signed away her daughter. He felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Here he was among friends laughing and celebrating while she was alone. Silver Scroll patting him on the back banished those thoughts, or at least pushed them back beneath the surface for the moment. “You can’t always make everypony happy, you know. Scootaloo’s happy, that’s what matters right now. You should write Mom and Dad to come meet her. Grace, Cherry, and their foals too. That lucky little filly is about to discover that she’s just gained more family than she knows what to do with.”

“Grace is gonna kill me when she finds out. She wasn’t crazy about me coming to Ponyville at all,” said Main Course.

“Eh, you two have been friends for a long time. I’m sure she’ll get over it. Just make sure she isn’t holding a frying pan or anything when you mention it,” said Silver Scroll. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go give my niece a hug and a kiss.” She did a happy little dance and her wings fluttered. “I still can’t get over that I’m an aunt now!”

She trotted over to Scootaloo, and lifted her up in a surprise hug from behind while Applejack laughed. Family. It was only now really starting to sink in for him that that’s just what Scootaloo was to him now. Just then, Pinkie wheeled out a cart covered in a big, pink-frosted sheet cake, lit up with a dozen candles. “Who wants adoption cake?” she called out to the room, and the stampede was on.

----------------------------

As the party wound down and the last guests left, Main Course sat back on the stairs that led up to their living space. Pinkie’s cleanup had been pretty thorough, and everything looked ready to open again tomorrow. Across the room, Scootaloo let out a big yawn. “Sounds like somepony’s about ready for bed,” said Main Course.

She turned her head and covered her mouth, trying futilely to hide the gesture. “Nuh uh! Can’t I stay up a little longer?” she asked.

“Sure, but on one condition. What were you and Ebby talking about earlier? About what happened last night?” he asked.

Scootaloo winced. “I... I don’t want to talk about that. I did something really bad.”

“Scootaloo, come here,” said Main Course. She obediently trotted over to him, and he lifted her up into his lap. When she tried to avoid looking up at him he slipped a hoof under her chin and gently pulled her head up. “I know last night must have been kind of scary seeing her almost slip off the cliff, but everything turned out fine, didn’t it? What are you worried about?”

“You... you promise you won’t change your mind if I tell you? About wanting to keep me?” asked Scootaloo.

“Of course I won’t. Don’t be silly. What could you possibly have done that you think I wouldn’t want you anymore?”

She sniffled and buried her face in Main’s chest for a bit before looking back up at him. “I was near the edge of the cliff when Mom fell. I almost fell too, but she saved me. Then...” she trailed off.

“Then what, Scootaloo?”

“Then she held out her hoof and asked me to help her up. And I... I ran away. I could have saved her, but I didn’t want to. I wanted her to fall into the water and just get swept away forever so she couldn’t hurt me anymore. I wanted her to die, Dad. And she almost did.” Main Course sat there in stunned silence, looking down at her. “Please say something.”

“I...” he began. What was there to say to that?

“I knew it. You don’t want me anymore. I’m just as bad as Mom was,” said Scootaloo.

“It’s okay, Scootaloo. Just because you did a bad thing, and yeah, that is pretty bad, that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t forgive you. You’re still a good pony,” said Main Course.

“Good ponies aren’t supposed to hurt other ponies. Or want to hurt them. I don’t want to be like her. She didn’t mean to hurt me, or want to, but she did anyway. How can I be a good pony if I turn out like my mom? Nopony would care about me anymore.”

“Hey, Scootaloo, come on. I’ll always care about you. So will your Aunt Silver and all of your friends. That’s not going to change.”

Scootaloo broke down sobbing, huddling into a tight little ball against him. “You promise that I won’t have to be alone again?”

“Never. You’ll always have a place here, okay?”

She looked up at him and smiled through her tears. “I’m glad you’re my dad now.”

“Me too,” said Main Course as he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She yawned again, more deeply this time. “Why don’t we talk about this more tomorrow? It’s been a long day.”

“Tuck me in?” she asked hopefully, wrapping her forelegs around his neck.

“Absolutely,” he said, supporting her with his foreleg as he carried her upstairs. He spontaneously decided that, from that night on, tucking his daughter into bed would be a tradition he would never break.

------------------------

Main Course tapped out a little staccato rhythm on the table next to him as he waited in the empty office. The gurgling of the little water feature hanging on the far wall provided a bit of background noise without rising to the level of becoming actively distracting.

The doors opened and a pudgy yellow earth pony stallion stepped inside. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Main Course. How have you been?"

He rose up from his seat and bumped the psychologist’s hoof. “I’ve been well, Doctor Inkblot, yourself?”

“Hmm,” he replied with a frown, “well that’s interesting.”

Main Course felt a surge of panic well up. “Why is that interesting?”

“Let me make some notes here,” he replied. He scribbled something onto a notepad.

“Did I say something wrong? What are you writing? Are you writing notes about me?”

“Paranoid tendencies. Very interesting indeed,” he muttered to himself.

Main Course was completely dumbfounded. The doctor kept writing for another fifteen seconds while he stood their growing increasingly concerned. Finally, Doctor Inkblot looked up. “Would you like to see what I’ve written?”

Main Course nearly snatched the pad out of his hooves. He expected to see nearly a paragraph of notes declaring that he was crazy, or somehow an unfit parent based on some miniscule tremor in his voice, but all that was written there was a single word: Relax! When Main Course looked back up, he saw that the doctor was smiling. “Very funny.”

“I thought so. And please, call me Briggs,” said Briggs as he took back the pad. “There was a point to that, though. Have a seat and I’ll explain.” Main Course sat back down on the sofa while Briggs claimed an easy chair in the far corner of the office. “A lot of patients come in here, especially in cases where Foal Protective Services have gotten involved, assuming that I’m trying to trip them up with ‘gotcha’ questions or find a reason to declare them to be unfit parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. From what Scootaloo said in our discussion the other day it’s already quite clear to me that you’re invested in her well being.”

“What did she say?” asked Main Course.

“I’m not going to disclose the specifics of what was said between myself and a patient,” said Briggs, a hint of disapproval on his face. “I will say that she thinks highly of you, though. I’m here to help both of you with the transition. It’s a big adjustment for you both.”

Main Course smiled. The doctor hadn’t turned out anything like he’d expected from the reports Scootaloo had brought back about the professionals in Canterlot. “Well, I’m glad. For a second there I was worried you thought I was crazy.”

“Oh, I do think you’re crazy,” replied Briggs. “At least a little bit. Haven’t met a pony yet who wasn’t in some way or another. The fact that you fit in here in Ponyville is proof enough of that by itself.”

“Everypony? Really? Even your psychologist friends?” asked Main.

Briggs winked at him. “Especially the psychologists. You know what they say, it takes one to know one. Let me give you an example. From what I’ve heard, about a week ago you shut down your restaurant on the spur of the moment and charged out into the woods, in the middle of a downpour, on the suspicion that Scootaloo might be there despite little evidence that she was. Now, how rational does that decision sound?”

“A pony I loved was in trouble. I wasn’t just going to sit around,” said Main Course.

“Ah, love,” said Briggs with a wistful lilt in his voice, “that most socially acceptable form of insanity. But that’s my point. We’re all a little crazy, especially where the ponies we care about are concerned. And we all have our own quirks and hangups. Which is a good thing, I think, or life would be a great deal more boring. My job is to make sure ponies have a handle on theirs, rather than the other way around.”

“Alright, let’s say I agree with you,” said Main Course. “Why don’t you tell me what my quirks are? Or do you want to ask me a bunch of questions about my mother first?”

Briggs chuckled. “If only it were that easy. I have a better idea, though. Tell me all about how you ended up running a restaurant here in Ponyville instead.”

Main Course shrugged. It seemed like a harmless enough question. He ran through the highlights of the last couple of months, from his frustration over losing the old Knoll in Manehattan to his discovery of the abandoned restaurant and Scootaloo. Then all the drama and back and forth between Scootaloo and Ebby. Throughout it all, Briggs was mostly quiet, occasionally asking a clarifying question but mostly just letting the story pour out. Main Course found that once he’d gotten started it was difficult to stop before he finally caught up to the night after the final paperwork had been signed.

“Yes, I heard the full version of what really happened at that cliffside,” said Briggs, “I imagine it’s something she’ll be having nightmares about for a while, but it’s good that you two were able to talk about it.” He looked up at the clock. “And now I think we should wrap things up since we’re about out of time.”

Main Course looked over at the clock in surprise. Sure enough, nearly the entire hour had already slipped away. “So that’s it? I’m done?”

“FPS usually requires at least four sessions before I can officially sign off on you, so I wouldn’t say we’re done. Still, I’m glad we had this chance to get to know one another.”

“Any special parenting advice I should be aware of?” asked Main Course.

Briggs put a hoof under his chin. “Well, there were a few things I did notice. It seems it’s very important to you to be the good guy when you interact with other ponies, isn’t it?”

“I’d say so. Thanks.”

“It was an observation, not a compliment,” said Briggs. “You work very hard to make sure everypony comes away from their dealings with you in a better situation than they were in before, which I’ll admit is admirable. Most of the time.”

“So what, being the good guy is suddenly a bad thing?”

“I didn’t say that either. I don’t have easy answers or a bunch of obvious platitudes for you, Main, I’m just here to help you be aware of the decisions you might otherwise make without much thought or reflection.” Briggs placed the pad down next to the table and stood up to walk Main Course out. “I asked Scootaloo to journal her thoughts and feelings at least once a day. Please encourage her to do so. I find that writing our feelings down and reviewing them later can often bring clarity. Lets us step out of the moment a bit and get a new perspective on our thoughts. Do you keep a journal, Main?”

“I, uh, I find I don’t really have time,” said Main Course. For some reason he couldn’t quite put his hoof on, he felt guilty about confessing that fact.

“Well, that’s too bad. Just something to consider. Stop and speak to my assistant on the way out, we’ll get your next few sessions set up and I’ll see you sometime next week.”

Main Course stepped out into the lobby, but was surprised when Briggs closed the door behind him without following. “Anything I can help you with before you leave?” asked a cheerful purple pegasus mare seated behind the office’s front desk.

“Uh...” said Main Course, momentarily disoriented. “I guess I need to make an appointment for next week.”

He haggled with the receptionist over available times, and finally pledged one of his few, precious free hours to the second session. On the way out he wondered if, perhaps, it wouldn’t be wise to stop by Ledgers and Lampshades to pick up a journal of his own.

Reluctant Invitations

RELUCTANT INVITATIONS

“I’ll dig a hole with my shovel, so the farmer can plant the carrots,” said Scootaloo, pacing back and forth in the kitchen as she read her line off the page. “No, I’ll dig a hole with my shovel, so the farmer can plant the carrots. Dad, which way do you think is better?”

Main Course, darting back and forth chopping up celery while trying to monitor the contents of three pans on the stove, spared a moment to glance over at her. “I think you need to stop pacing. I don’t mind if you rehearse in here while I’m cooking, but I need you to stay over there or I might trip over you.”

“Daaaaad,” she whined, “The play is two days! If I don’t practice I might forget my line.”

Privately, Main Course hoped never to hear about shovels, farmers, or even carrots ever again. Still, it was important to Scootaloo, so he bit back his retort. Before he could give her any feedback, Pinkie Pie trotted into the kitchen. “You know what Scootaloo? Ask Pinkie Pie.”

“Ask me what?” asked Pinkie.

“I’m trying to practice for my line in the school play, but I just can’t get it quite right,” said Scootaloo.

Pinkie let out a loud gasp. “Omigosh, I’ll be your acting coach! Please oh please oh please can I? Please?”

“You know about acting?” asked Scootaloo, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Yep! I’m super good at it. Ponies are always telling me ‘Pinkie, you’re acting crazy,’ or ‘Pinkie, you’re acting silly,’ and that’s when I’m not even trying. So I bet once I actually do try I’ll be even better. Let me see the script.”

Scootaloo passed it over to her while Main Course, grateful for the reprieve, turned his attention back to the oven. The Knoll was packed, and if he started to fall behind he’d end up deep in the weeds for the rest of the night.

“My line is on page fifteen,” said Scootaloo, reading over Pinkie’s shoulder as she rapidly flipped through the pages.

“Gotcha,” said Pinkie. She paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Okay, so what’s your motivation?”

“I don’t wanna screw up in front of everypony. All the moms and dads will be there,” said Scootaloo. “Um, Dad, you’re gonna come too, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Main Course replied from the chopping board. The blade of the knife moved too quickly to watch as he julienned a head of lettuce into garnish.

“No, silly filly, what’s your character’s motivation?” asked Pinkie.

“Uh... she likes carrots?” guessed Scootaloo.

“That’s not enough,” said Pinkie. “Brace yourself, Scootaloo. We’re gonna figure out the subtext.”

“What’s subtext?” asked Scootaloo. The poor filly was looking more and more lost with every word, clearly regretting asking the question in the first place.

“Rarity explained it to me once. It’s what the story’s really about even though it’s about something else. So even though the words in the script might say they’re about a vegetable garden and a troublesome bunny rabbit, the story’s really about the rise of nihilism within the proletariat. You can tell because of the bit with the watermelon,” said Pinkie. Scootaloo just stared, slack-jawed at the pages of the script. “It’s not your fault for not seeing it. I can’t believe they’d give something so advanced to your class. Try your line again.”

Scootaloo took the script back, handling it gingerly like it was some alien artifact. “Uh, I’ll dig a hole with my shovel, so the farmer can plant the carrots. How’s that?”

“Hmm... still feels like it’s missing something,” said Pinkie. “Try it with more passion.”

"I’LL DIG A HOLE WITH MY SHOVEL, SO THE FARMER CAN PLANT THE CARROTS!” shouted Scootaloo.

Lyra stuck her head through the order window. “Uh, Scootaloo? Could you keep it down a bit? We’re getting some weird questions out here from some of the diners.”

"Sorry,” said Scootaloo, but Pinkie Pie shook her head.

“The passion of the gardener cannot be contained! Shout it from the rooftops, Scootaloo.”

“Let’s, uh, can we talk more about what my motivation is supposed to be in this scene?” asked Scootaloo, wisely diverting Pinkie’s attention away from the question of volume.

“Sure we can! It’s easy once you spot the metaphor,” replied Pinkie.

“It is? So, what are the carrots meta for?”

“It’s one of the most common ones,” explained Pinkie. “Think about it. The gardener makes hole in the fertile soil, then waits for the farmer, seething with lust, to come around and stick his carrots in the holes like a—”

“Pinkie!” snapped Main Course. “Go check and see if table Space Forest 4: Rise of the Lunar Lumberjacks has paid their bill yet, and bus it for the next customer.”

“But I just checked a minute ago and they hadn’t—”

“Do it. Now,” growled Main Course through clenched teeth. Pinkie nodded and left the kitchen without another word.

“Dad, what’s ‘seething with lust’ mean?” asked Scootaloo, the picture of foalhood innocence.

“I’ll explain when you’re older. Now, have you written in your journal today for Doctor Inkblot?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Do I have to? I’m gonna see him first thing tomorrow anyway,” moaned Scootaloo. She was not an especially introspective pony. For the last week, getting her to do her ‘crazy pony homework,’ as she disdainfully referred to it, had been a point of major contention between the two of them.

“Yes, you have to. You can write about how annoying you find it to write in the journal if you want to, but Doctor Inkblot told you—”

“Two pages every day about what you did and how you felt,” she recited. “Why can’t that be my line in the play? I’ve certainly heard it enough.”

“I’ll come up and check on you when things start to quiet down here, okay?” He gave her a quick peck on the forehead before returning to work.

“We can go to the park after my appointment, right? Are you just gonna wait for me?”

Main Course allowed himself a little smile. “Actually, I’ll be meeting somepony for breakfast.”

---------------------------

“Pinkie was about to tell her the carrots represented what?” asked Ebby. She coughed on the sip of orange juice Main Course had deliberately waited for her to take before letting that part of the story slip.

“You heard me. That mare’s a great employee but I have no idea what’s going on in her head most of the time. I had a talk with her afterwards, so it won’t happen again.”

Ebby giggled. “I’m imagining the look on your face as she said it. I wish I’d been there to see it.” Main Course stuck another forkful of pancakes into his mouth and smiled. “Main, you’ve got some syrup...” she gestured vaguely at her own cheek.

Main lifted up his napkin and rubbed the spot he thought she meant. “Did I get it?”

“Nope, here.” She took her own napkin and reached across the table, wiping at the corner of his mouth. He felt it stick for just a moment and come away smudged with a speck of sticky, golden liquid. “Oh, sorry. I probably should have asked before I did that. I know some ponies don’t like being touched.”

Main’s tongue poked out the side of his mouth and in a few quick motions lapped up the last of the sweet stain. “I don’t mind at all. Hey, can I ask you something about Scootaloo? Has she always been reluctant to talk about her feelings and such? I thought it would get easier as time went on, but it’s still like pulling teeth.”

Ebby grimaced. “That probably our fault. Opening up to other ponies was like a sign of weakness among the nobility, so she must have soaked that attitude up when she was little. Even now, knowing it’s stupid, my first instinct is to hide that kind of thing.” She ran a foreleg absentmindedly over the sleeve of the red dress she was wearing. “Thank you again, by the way, for meeting me and filling me in on what you and Scootaloo have been up to. It means more to me than you know.”

“Well, that was the deal, right? Besides, it’s nice to get to spend some time with you without any kind of pressure or drama hanging over our heads. I could get used to it,” said Main Course. “What have you been up to these days? Find yourself a place to live?”

“I did! In fact, let me give you the address now while I’m thinking of it.” She grabbed a paper napkin and a quill from her saddleback, scribbling down the new address and passing it over to him. “It’s nice. I doubt I’ll be entertaining there anytime soon, but it fits my needs.”

Main Course glanced up at the clock. Scootaloo’s appointment would be winding down soon. “Listen Ebby, it was really great to see you again. I need to go pick up Scootaloo from a thing, though. Want to do this again next week?”

“I’d like that. It’s a date,” she replied. “Actually, this is good timing. I need to get going too or I’m going to be late for an appointment of my own.” She tossed some cash onto the table and they both walked out the front door of the diner.

“Bye Ebby, I’ll see you later then,” said Main Course, offering his hoof.

“I look forward to it. Take care, Main,” said Ebby. She bumped his hoof and they nodded at each other.

Then they both began walking in the same direction down the street.

Main Course laughed. “I hate it when that happens,” he said as she sidestepped another unicorn struggling with a half-dozen overloaded shopping bags from the nearby stores.

“I know, right?” said Ebby. She playfully flicked her tail against his side. “You never know if you’re supposed to start talking again, or just lapse into that really awkward silence. I’m glad you said something first or we’d have to do the whole ‘do we say goodbye again or does the last one still count’ thing when I turn left up here.”

Main Course let out a snort. “That would have been even funnier, since I’m making the same turn.”

“I thought the Knoll was straight ahead from here, though.”

“I’m picking up Scootaloo from somewhere else, then we’re going to the park. Why, where are you going?” asked Main as they both turned down the side street.

Ebby fidgeted a bit. “When Agent Palomino mentioned that Scootaloo should go to counselling, I thought it might be good if I found somepony to talk to myself.”

“Let me guess, you ended up going to Briggs Inkblot,” said Main Course as the doctor’s office came into view. “Why would you intentionally pick the same one he recommended?”

“I didn’t know that’s who he’d recommended, all I knew was he’d given you a card with a name. It’s not like there are that many psychologists in a town this size,” said Ebby. Realization dawned on her face. “Wait, is that what you’re picking Scootaloo up from right now?”

The pair stopped in front of the office building, and Main Course sighed. The two of them stood there watching one another in the road as the ponies of the town went about their business. A passing cart kicked up some dust as it went by, but neither Ebby nor Main especially noticed it settling into their coats. “It would be fine if you were just in the waiting room when she came out, right? I could explain that it was just a scheduling accident. It might even help her to—”

Ebby didn’t wait for him to finish before she turned and walked away. “I promised her, Main,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m going to take a long walk around the block. Let Briggs know I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She stopped in her tracks. “Wish Scootaloo luck in her play for me. I’m sure she’ll be great.” Then she turned the corner and was gone.

Main Course walked into the waiting room of Briggs’ office and found him and Scootaloo waiting for him there. “Hi Dad. How was your breakfast with Ebby?” she asked.

“It was fine. Did you two have a good talk?” asked Main Course.

Scootaloo thought for a moment, but then nodded. “Yeah, we talked about a lot of different stuff about Ebby and my play. My head kinda hurts.”

“Well, I think a few hours hanging out in the park sounds like a perfect cure. I even borrowed us a frisbee.” He turned to Briggs and grew serious. “So did you mean to schedule your next appointment when you did? Or was that just bad luck?”

“My next...” Briggs furrowed his brow and walked over to the receptionist’s desk. He looked down at the calendar and his eyes went wide. “Oh. No, that was inadvertent. She rescheduled a few days ago from her usual time and I didn’t notice the connection. I apologize, it won’t happen again.”

Scootaloo looked back and forth between the two stallions. “What are you guys talking about?”

Briggs shook his head. “Scootaloo, I can’t give out information about my patients. They talk to me about things they might want to be private. It would be unethical of me to even tell you a name.”

Main Course rolled his eyes. “It’s Ebby, Scoots. We walked over from breakfast together.”

“What? She’s here?” asked Scootaloo. She started to look around the room as if her mother might suddenly pop out from a corner she’d hidden herself in.

“No, Scoots, she isn’t. When I told her I was here to pick you up she left to give you a chance to leave before she comes in,” said Main Course. He thanked his lucky stars Ebby hadn’t taken him up on the offer to come in with him.

“It sounds like she’s taking that promise you told me she made to you seriously, Scootaloo,” said Briggs. “Remember what we talked about? Why don’t you try that now, since you seem a little bit agitated by the idea that she might be nearby.”

Scootaloo nodded. “Okay, I guess so.” She trotted past Main Course, ignoring his curious look, and hopped up onto the waiting room couch. Closing her eyes she lay her head back onto a throw pillow and began muttering to herself. “I’m anxious right now. I’m not going to feel like this forever, but right now I do. My mother is here in Ponyville, but that doesn’t mean Ponyville isn’t a safe place for me. There are lots of ponies who will protect me if she tries to take me away again, and she’s promised that she won’t. I don’t know that she’s breaking that promise, even though before I ran away she’d sometimes manage to keep her promises a little while and then she’d break them anyway.”

“Easy, Scootaloo. Remember, look ahead rather than behind, and look at the reasons you don’t have to worry,” interjected Briggs.

Scootaloo opened one eye and looked over at them. “Right, sorry, it’s just too easy to remember the other stuff.”

“I know. That’s why we’re practicing. Keep going.”

She settled back onto the couch. “Even if she tried to take me back, the Guard would protect me. Rarity and Applejack and Rainbow Dash would protect me. Dad would protect me. So now I can stop being worried just because my mother is somewhere outside.” She exhaled a deep breath.

“Feel better?” asked Briggs.

“Kinda. Mostly I just feel silly talking to myself like that in front of everypony.”

Main Course smiled. “If it helps you feel better, I don’t think it’s silly at all. Ready to go?” While Scootaloo did seem a bit more relaxed, Main was eager to get her out of there before Ebby got back.

“Keep writing in the diary,” said Briggs, earning a groan from Scootaloo, “and Main, I’ll see you in a couple of days for our appointment.”

Main Course and Scootaloo bid Briggs a quick farewell and left for the park. The early morning fog had lifted, and the last lingering droplets of dew on the grass had evaporated away. “I wish that Doctor Inkblot could just fix me for good so I don’t have to do that anxiety exercise. What if Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon catch me talking to myself like that? They’ll make fun of me,” said Scootaloo as they reached the open fields of Ponyville Park.

“You aren’t something broken that needs to be fixed, Scootaloo. And it’s a good trick to know how to do. Those two would say mean things no matter what, so forget them. Come on, race you to that tree over there. Onetwothree GO!” Main Course took off at a leisurely canter.

“No fair, I wasn’t ready!” cried out Scootaloo, her bullying concerns temporarily forgotten. She charged after him, and he let her gain just enough that their hooves touched the tree at the same time. “Ha! I won, even though you cheated.”

“I don’t know, it looked pretty close to me,” said Main Course. He tossed his head back and let the sunlight shine down on his face for a moment. He’d been cooped up in the kitchen too much lately. Stretching his legs felt good, too. Spending ten hours a day in a little room surrounded by delicious food and marinating in the stress of running a kitchen was the ideal recipe for a chubby chef; Main Course had long fought to avoid becoming one of them. Romping around the park with Scootaloo would do both of them a world of good.

Main Course took the frisbee out of his saddlebags and tossed it around with her for a while. It turned out that Scootaloo hadn’t ever learned how to throw one, so he gave her an impromptu lesson, guiding her hoof under the edge of the disc and showing her how to flick it so the spin made it curve as it flew. They practiced tossing it back and forth, and Main Course grinned when one of his tosses went high, but with a buzz of her wings Scootaloo leapt high into the air and caught it anyway before drifting slowly back down. She was gasping for breath when she landed, but happy. “Did you see that, Dad? I almost hovered!”

“That was great, Scootaloo. I bet it’ll be any day now you’ll be flying all over the place. I’ll finally have somepony to help reach the stuff I put on high shelves. And of course, I’m going to need to put you on a leash or something to keep you from just flying off.”

“Daddy! You can’t put me on a leash,” whined Scootaloo.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’s a nice leash. I’ll even let you pick out the color.” He ducked at the last second as the frisbee flew right through the space where his head had been a moment before and over to a nearby hillside. “Almost hit me there.”

“My aim’s getting better,” said Scootaloo, “next time I won’t miss.”

“That’s my girl,” said Main Course with a grin. “Come on, let’s go get it. Why don’t we get some ice cream, too?”

The two ponies settled onto the hillside with a pair of ice cream cones purchased from Double Scoop’s cart, looking up at the clouds drifting across the sky. They ate in silence for a minute before Main turned to Scootaloo. “What are you thinking about?” he asked. Scootaloo didn’t answer; she was staring off at something up in the distance. He followed her gaze, and noticed a tiny, faraway shape moving against the wind. It turned, and from the shape of it in profile he realized that it was an airship, ferrying something or somepony along the horizon.

“Doctor Inkblot and I talked about some of the stuff I remember about Mom from the better times,” said Scootaloo. “I had forgotten some of it, until I started talking about it.”

“Speaking of Ebby, this morning she told me to wish you good luck in your play.”

Scootaloo turned back to Main Course and frowned. “She’s not going to come to it, right?”

“Not unless you want her there,” said Main Course.

“I don’t.” Silence descended over the hillside again and Main Course wrapped a foreleg around her. She leaned in to rest her head against his side. “Dad? Remember back that night at the cliff?”

“I think it’s going to be a long time before I forget it, Scoots. What about it?”

“...I’m glad you caught her,” said Scootaloo.

“Me too,” said Main Course, rubbing her shoulder with his hoof.

Scootaloo rested there for a moment before she spoke again. "How do you tell if a pony is good or bad, Dad?" she asked. "I think I'm good, but that night I did something really bad. And I think my mom might be bad, but she did a lot of good stuff, too. It's all really confusing."

"That's a good question," said Main Course, stalling while he searched for a fitting response. “I don’t think anypony is always good or always bad. Put even the sweetest, most wonderful filly in the world in a rough situation like that, and they’ll do awful things. But look at it this way; you’re genuinely sorry for what you did. I think that anypony, if they’re really, truly sorry for what they did and do everything they can to make it better for the ponies they hurt then maybe they weren’t truly bad ponies at heart.” He trailed off. “You don’t have to forgive her, Scootaloo, but I think you would feel better if you did, even just a little bit.”

“Maybe,” said Scootaloo, flopping back down on the grass and looking away.

Main Course ran a hoof through her mane. “Look, you’ve been thinking about this all morning already. The answers will come with time, okay? This is new for all three of us, and there’s lots of stuff we’ll figure out along the way.” He finished up the last of his ice cream and crumpled up the napkin he’d been holding the cone in. “Come on, let’s go for a little hike and then head home so I can make us some lunch.

They walked away from the hill, and in the distance the airship slowly shrank away until it couldn’t be seen any longer.

-------------------------

Sitting at his desk, Main Course reread the letter he’d received that afternoon for the third time.

Main Course,

Scootaloo sounds like a sweetheart, I can’t wait to meet her. I have some new updates on the whole insurance rigmarole, but it’s too much to go into now. The good news is that midterm break is coming up this weekend, so my class is out for a few days. I’ll be on the train to Ponyville to come and see what you've managed to pull together out there, and maybe start figuring out an asking price for when you sell it.

It’ll be a fun weekend. We’ll have a lot to talk about.

Yours Truly,
Grace

Main Course tapped the tip of his quill against the surface of the desk, a tic that had completely mutilated his last three work desks over the years. This was not a conversation he’d been looking forward to. He’d just finally started to feel settled here, and the reminder that he’d promised to pick up stakes and move back to the big, impersonal city had already been eating at him since he’d signed the paperwork for Scootaloo. If he tried to uproot Scootaloo, would he be any better than Ebby was? But Grace was counting on him, too. There had to some kind of compromise. There always was.

He groaned and planted his face down on the desk. The last few weeks had been so draining with everything that had happened. He didn’t regret taking on any of it, but the stress was building up. Tomorrow another week of work would start, and next weekend he’d probably spend his day off dealing with Grace.

“Dad, are you alright?” asked Scootaloo from the door to his office. He looked up and saw her standing there carrying her fully loaded saddlebags across her back.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just have a bit of a headache from all this homework,” said Main Course. “Are you ready to go to Rarity’s for your sleepover?”

Scootaloo was usually eager to sleep over at either of her best friends’ houses, but this time she seemed a bit more subdued. “Rarity’s gonna make us try on costumes all night, isn’t she?”

Main laughed. “She might, but I’m sure you’ll all manage to have fun anyway. Besides, you three will be the best-looking fillies onstage tomorrow night.”

“Um... about that,” said Scootaloo. “I was thinking about what we talked about in the park, and what Doctor Inkblot said, and I think that if my mom wanted to come to the play tomorrow I’d be okay with it.”

Main Course blinked a few times. “Really? You would?”

“I don’t want her to talk to me, or Miss Cheerilee, or meet any of my friends though. She can come for just the play and she has to promise to leave right afterwards. I mean, it’ll be bright up on stage and Miss Cheerilee says we’ll barely even be able to see anypony out in the audience. So I think I could handle it if she were there watching.” She looked away. “Sorry I decided this so late. It’s probably too late to tell her anyway.”

If Scootaloo wanted to extend an olive branch, even a tiny one, Main Course wouldn’t let a silly little matter of logistics get in the way. “I’ll ask her if she wants to come after I bring you over tonight. Are you sure?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “No. But ask her anyway.”

When Main Course dropped Scootaloo off at Rarity’s boutique for the night, the mare whisked her straight inside for final touchups and fittings on the costumes she’d made for each of the Crusaders. Apparently, she took school plays quite seriously and always had. Main Course gave Scootaloo a kiss goodnight and promised that he’d see her after the play tomorrow night. His spirits were high as he left and headed for the address Ebby had given him. Sure, Scootaloo had only offered the barest minimum concession, but that was beside the point. She had offered. The idea of Ebby just being in the same room as she was didn’t send her into panicky fits anymore.

The address led him to a small brick-walled complex of six or seven individual apartments near the far edge of town. Main Course found Ebby’s unit and knocked on the front door. He waited for about a minute, then knocked again. No answer. The smile he’d been sporting since leaving the boutique began to slip and his headache reasserted itself. Well, maybe she was already asleep or just not home. Main Course pulled a piece of paper out and scribbled down a quick note. He slid it under the door and had just turned to leave when it opened a smidgen.

“Main Course?” asked Ebby. She stuck her head outside, her damp mane wrapped in a white towel. “Did you knock? I’m sorry, I just got out of the shower. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Actually, could I come in for a minute?” he asked.

“Oh, sure. One second.” She closed the door again, and when she opened it again a moment later it was from further inside with her magic. Main Course walked in and surveyed the bare little studio apartment. It was sparsely furnished, the undecorated gray walls making it feel gloomy even though several lights were on. A ceiling fan turned lazily above Ebby, standing on the bare wooden floors. Her wet black mane clung to the side of her neck and head, and she’d unfurled the towel and was holding it between the two of them in her magic, covering her body up like a curtain.

Main Course, unsure of how or even if he was supposed to acknowledge the towel, looked around the room. There was an open book pages-down on her bed, a paperback copy of Eat Bray Love that looked like it had been flipped through more than once, and a lone picture on her nightstand depicting her holding a much younger Scootaloo on the deck of an airship with a magnificent vista in the background. Beyond that, there wasn’t any sign of a personal touch. “Nice place. It’s... uh...”

“Depressing?” finished Ebby. “I haven’t really had a chance to liven it up yet. Once I’ve brought in a few more things it’ll start to feel like somepony actually lives here.” As Main Course walked into the room she moved away from him, constantly shifting the towel in the air to obscure herself.

“Well, do you have any plans for tomorrow evening? Scootaloo wanted to know if you’d come to watch her school play.”

Ebby froze. The towel wavered and nearly dropped before she recovered. “She... wants me at her play?”

“Well, not unconditionally,” said Main Course, “she said she’d, well, rather not see you or talk to you before or after it. Still, if you want to be in the audience during the performance itself...” he trailed off. “I’m sorry, that towel is really throwing me off.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked away. “I didn’t want to make you wait until I got dressed. It’s for the best, though.”

“Is it really that bad, Ebby?” he asked as gently as he could. “I’m sure that whatever’s under there, I can take it.”

She gave him a bitter little smile. “That’s what everypony says. I tried dating a few ponies after I got divorced, you know. I know how to put on the most charming facade, and Obsidian was always careful not to leave any marks where they couldn’t be covered up.” She dropped her eyes. “Then ponies see the ugliness underneath the disguise, and suddenly I’m alone again.”

“Sounds exhausting, being alone all the time like that,” said Main Course. He chanced a small step in her direction.

“I see what you’re trying to do, Main, and it’s sweet of you. But I’m toxic. There have been two ponies who I loved more than anything else in the world. I got one of them shoved so far down a dark hole that he’ll never see daylight again, and drove the other one to despair until she ran away. Don’t set yourself up to be number three. I’m not worth it.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Ebby. And I don’t believe that you could possibly be ugly. So I’m calling in one of those favors you owe me and asking that you trust me.”

She sniffled. “Of course I trust you." The room was quiet for a long minute while she made up her mind. "Just... close your eyes for a second, okay?”

He shrugged and closed then. Something soft and fluffy hit him in the face. He pulled the towel away and for the first time got a good look at what Ebby had been keeping hidden for so long. His breath caught in his throat as he took in her uncovered chest and flank. Old scars ran along her side and criss-crossed at a hundred different angles over her back. A patch of her vibrant orange coat behind her right shoulder was corrupted into a splotchy grey-brown, and looked rough and scraggly in comparison to it’s otherwise well-groomed sheen. He finally got a good look at her cutie mark. Sure enough, it was a shield carved out of black wood with a few token stems and leaves growing from the sides. It stood out as the largest patch of unmarred skin between the base of her neck and her knees. “Ebby...”

“I know,” she said, squeezing her eyes closed rather than looking up at him. She probably didn’t need to see his face to guess at the look of horror he was giving her. “I’m pretty disgusting.”

“It’s not that ba...” the lie was just too big to get out, so he tried something more truthful. “I don’t think you’re disgusting. Damaged, maybe, but not disgusting and certainly not ugly.” He reached out to her with a foreleg, pausing when he thought better of it. “Sorry. Can I touch you?”

She smiled without opening her eyes. “It’s been a long time since a stallion wanted to. Sure.” When he hesitated, she took a few steps closer on her own and brought her side against his suspended hoof. As he brushed over the lines, each one tracing out the story of another night she put herself between the Count and Scootaloo, she whimpered.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” asked Main as he allowed himself to put a little more pressure on her back. He should really stop staring at her, but he found he just couldn’t look away.

“Compared to how I got them, it barely even tickles.” She half-opened her eyes and looked up at him, and his mind suddenly registered that the tips of their muzzles were less than an inch apart. Her nostrils flared, and she burst into a giggling fit. “Sorry, I just noticed that you absolutely reek of garlic.”

“Kind of a professional hazard. I hope you don’t mind too much.”

“It’s nice,” she replied as she nuzzled his neck, letting his silvery mane fall over her face. He could feel the hot little puffs of her breath against his skin as she breathed the scent in. A bit of the tension he’d been carrying in his neck relaxed under the heat. “I... I think the smart thing to do would be to ask you to leave. Because if I don’t, I think I’m going to last about five more minutes before I ask you to stay.”

“That would probably be the smart thing, yes. Otherwise things might get a lot more complicated,” agreed Main Course. Despite that, neither of them found the willpower to pull away. Instead, he let Ebby wrap a hoof over his back and raise her head until their faces were cheek-to-cheek.

Main Course planted a light kiss on her, and was rewarded with a little sigh. “That’s not fair. You need to stop all of this, Main. Stop making me smile when I think about you. Stop making me feel safe when you’re holding me. Stop giving me all this hope that things are going to work out.” She pressed the tip of her muzzle to his, their lips so close together that he could feel hers even though they weren’t quite touching. “Stop making me fall in love with you.” Before he could respond, she pushed forward and kissed him back.

It was just as well. His answer would have been ‘no.’

Their first kiss, on that treacherous afternoon back in Rarity’s boutique, and been gentle and accommodating. This one, on the other hoof, was taking no prisoners. Locked in a passionate embrace, the couple stumbled and dragged one another across the room until Main Course pinned Ebby down on the bed. He traced his hooves all along her sides, exploring each ancient ridge and bump from her old wounds, while she wriggled around trying to press herself against him more tightly. Ebby’s moans were cut off by another hungry, seeking kiss.

It was well over an hour later when they both passed out tangled up in the other’s legs, spent but glowing with satisfaction. The Knoll could open a little bit later than usual the next day.

Wake Up Call

WAKE UP CALL

Main Course woke up as the first rays of light shone into his face, earlier than they should have. He blinked a few times and then rolled over.

There was Ebby, sound asleep next to him.

Everything from the night before came rushing back. He reached up and gently lifted a strand of her mane off of her cheek, smiling as her eyes flickered open. “Well, good morning,” she said as a grin slowly spread across her face.

“Best one I’ve woken up to for awhile,” he replied as she leaned in to kiss him.

The two of them clung to each other for a few moments before Ebby pulled herself away. She turned her head towards the nightstand, the early morning sunbeam catching her mane and making the dark hair shimmer. “Ugh, do you always get up this early?” She glanced at the clock. "5:45 isn't really my best time. I'm not a morning pony."

"My alarm usually goes off at six," replied Main.

"Well I guess that means you aren't going anywhere for the next fifteen minutes, doesn't it?" She rolled over and pressed her back into Main's stomach, while he draped a foreleg over her side. Holding her this close, he took a moment to enjoy the feel of her body against his for a moment before she spoke again. "In... fourteen minutes now you're going to get up, and all the problems and complications we just set in motion are going to rear their ugly heads. Until then, though, I just want you to hold me."

"You think last night was a mistake?" asked Main Course. A tiny hint of pain and disappointment slipped into his voice.

He felt her nod. "An amazing and wonderful mistake. I don't regret it, but we both know this can't become a regular thing. Scootaloo would be furious if she found out. I really like you, Main, but I don't love you as much as I love her. If she thinks I'm trying to get back into her life through you, she'll freak out."

"I guess you're right," said Main Course. "Boy, the two of us just have the absolute worst timing, don't we?"

She laughed. "It's about par for the course, where my love life is concerned."

Main Course kissed her neck and felt her arch her back, pressing into him a little harder. "Has anypony ever told you that you have a beautiful laugh?"

She rolled over to face him. "Come on, Main. Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"I've got twelve minutes left. I plan to put them to good use," he replied, kissing the tip of her horn. She jolted and let out a little squeak as his lips made contact. "Oh my gosh, did you just squeak?" he asked with a smirk.

Ebby blushed through her orange coat. "That's a sensitive spot for unicorns, okay? You took me by surprise." Her glower utterly failed to be intimidating. How many other embarrassing little quirks like that did she have?

"That was adorable. What other noises do you make?" He started to slide a hoof lower on her body and she moaned. "I heard that one a few times last night."

"Oh, you want to start that game? For the next ten minutes I'm going to play you like an instrument, buddy." She climbed on top of him, straddling his barrel between her thighs and pinning his forelegs to either side. Main Course tried to free his rear legs, but found them hopelessly wrapped up in the blankets and sheets.

"I'm tangled, hold on," he said.

She grinned. "Oh no you don't. I like having you at my mercy like this." She leaned down and started slowly and deliberately planting kisses one by one up the length of his neck. He groaned, and heard her give a breathy little chuckle as she reached his left ear. "I told you so."

He turned his head and lifted his mouth to meet hers, locking them into another kiss. When Ebby's hoof slipped off his foreleg he reached up with the intention of flipping her over and regaining the initiative. As his hoof pressed into the discolored patch of fur behind her shoulder, she cried out in pain. Main Course pulled his hoof away instantly, and Ebby sat up. She winced and turned away, tears welling up in her eyes as she gently rubbed the spot with her hoof. "I'm sorry, are you alright? I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know you didn't. That's just another sensitive spot," she replied, refusing to look down at him.

"What happened that messed up your coat like that?"

"Burned. It never regrew quite right afterwards,” said Ebby. Her coat gently crackled under her touch, the damaged hair stubbornly refusing to settle down unlike the otherwise smooth and silky parts of her coat that had slid against his as they’d coupled the night before.

"Burned?" repeated Main Course. "Ebby, what did he—"

"Really not what I want to spend our last four minutes talking about, Main," interrupted Ebby. She laid down on top of him, belly to belly, and wrapped her forelegs around him as she buried her face in his chest. They laid together in silence with their eyes closed, willing the seconds to pass just a little bit slower. “Thank you for this,” she whispered.

Main Course opened one eye and looked at the clock. “5:59. Better make this last minute count.” Ebby lifted her muzzle to his and kissed him deeply, both of them desperately trying to capture that feeling of closeness for as long as they could.

Then the clock struck six, and the two pulled apart. They stared into one another’s eyes for just a few more seconds, then Ebby tossed back the covers and climbed out of bed. “You can take the shower first if you want to. I wouldn’t usually surface until at least seven thirty, so I’m not in a hurry.”

Main Course stepped into her bathroom and climbed into the shower. He stared down at the foreign knobs and eventually, lacking any direction, twisted one of them. He was rewarded with a blast of icy-cold water, and shivered until he’d deciphered the trick to making it at least lukewarm. He cleaned himself off with an intensely floral-smelling body wash he found half a bottle of and some shampoo. When he emerged, clean and ready to start his day, he found Ebby in her kitchen munching on a bowl of cereal. “I guess I’ll see you at the play tonight, then,” said Main Course.

“I’ll be there, but you may or may not see me. I probably won’t stick around very long afterwards. Still, I’m looking forward to it,” she said between bites. She studied a little fruit bowl on the far side of the counter intently, resisting any attempt he made to meet her gaze.

“Well, bye then,” said Main Course. He stood there awkwardly for a few moments before leaning in and giving her a chaste peck on the cheek, then turned and left before she could reply.

In the long walk back to the Knoll in the early morning light, he reflected on the night before. For just a moment, everything had felt right. But he shook off the feeling and focused on the ponies he had to be responsible for. His employees counted on him for their livelihood, and more importantly his daughter was counting on him to put her needs ahead of his own desires. With a sigh, he reached his front door and went inside to start prepping for lunch service.

----------------------

“Ready for an evening of scintillating and provocative theatre? The very height of Ponyville culture?” asked Silver Scroll as she waited for Main Course to lock up the Knoll.

“I’m just happy that she’ll finally be finished rehearsing those lines. Sorry, line, singular. Do you have a camera?” asked Main Course as he trotted over the front yard to meet up with her. Above, the first stars of the evening had just begun to come out.

"Didn't bother to bring it. The school photographer is pretty good, and they'll send out pictures to all the parents," said Silver, "geez, it's been three weeks already since you adopted her and I'm still a little freaked out whenever I try to think of you that way. I got a letter from Mom the other day asking when I’m going to settle down with somepony and have a foal too. I swear that mare is insatiable.”

Main Course chuckled as they walked towards the little schoolhouse at the edge of town. They weren’t the only ones headed in that direction. Silver Scroll’s sarcastic little jab at the sleepy little town had been half-true; even ponies who didn’t have any foals of their own in the play were trotting in the same direction to support their friends and neighbors. It struck him as odd the way everypony knew everypony. Back in Manehattan he hadn’t even learned the names of his neighbors who lived in the same apartment complex. Here, though, he recognized at least half of the stallions and mares walking with them from the Knoll. “Well, it’s not like I’m settled exactly. I’ve only been open for what, two months? It’s too soon to tell if this will last.”

“Sure it is,” she replied with a knowing little smile as she adjusted her glasses. “Do you know Daisy? She was wondering if you had a free evening sometime in the next couple weeks. I know you’re busy, but she’s really cute.”

“Are you trying to set me up on a date?” asked Main Course.

“Maaaaaaaaybe,” said Silver Scroll. “It wouldn’t kill you to put down some roots somewhere, would it?”

“I’ve already got a lot on my plate, Silver,” said Main Course as the stage that had been set up in the open field behind the schoolhouse came into view.

“Hey, none of us are getting any younger. At least I’ve got my eye on the cute filing clerk who works at city hall, but you barely ever leave your kitchen. What are you going to do, sleep with one of your waitresses?” asked Silver Scroll.

Main Course frowned. Why did she decide to bring this up now, of all times? “Can we change the subject?” he asked.

Silver Scroll looked over and studied his face. He stopped and leaned back from her penetrating stare. “Hmm... No, you aren’t interested in any of them.”

“You don’t know that for sure. Lyra’s reasonably attractive,” said Main Course.

“Nah, I’d know if you had your eye on one of them. You get this look to you that you haven’t ever learned to hide,” said Silver Scroll. “There’s a reason you’ll never beat me at poker.” They walked on in silence for another minute looking for a good spot in the field to watch the play from. Several ponies had come with blankets and picnic baskets, with the intent to make an evening out of the show. Silver Scroll came to an abrupt stop, holding out a foreleg to stop Main Course as well. “Main,” she hissed, “Ebony’s here.”

Sure enough, on the other side of the crowd Ebby was sitting apart from anypony else making small talk with another mare, a pink bow tied into her mane. “It’s fine. Scootaloo gave her the okay to see it. I told her last night that she could come.”

“Well that’s good,” said Silver Scroll, letting out a relieved breath. “Heh. Dropping by her apartment late at night to invite her to a show? Good thing you aren’t dating her.” Main Course clenched his lips closed a bit tighter and hoped she wouldn’t notice. She did. “Main, that’s the part where you laugh, because the idea that you would be dumb enough to do something like that is so ridiculous it’s farcical, right?” she asked. “Right, Main?”

“We should, uh,” stuttered Main, stalling for time. “We should talk about something else right now.”

“Oh, Main,” said Silver Scroll as an incredulous look began to spread over her face, “tell me nothing happened.”

“Nothing’s going to happen from now on, does that count?”

Silver brought a hoof up to her face and shook her head. “You moron. Of all the mares in Ponyville you could have had a one night stand with, you went and picked literally the worst one. What were you thinking?”

Main Course motioned for her to lower her voice. “Look, it just kind of happened, okay? I didn’t go over there planning on staying the night. She’s just really alone right now, and when I saw some of the scars she has under those dresses she wears—”

“You decided you just had to save her like the noble idiot that you are,” finished Silver Scroll. “And of course, the best way to do that was to let her seduce you. Have you even considered that she might not have your best interests in mind?”

“It’s not like that. Come on, don’t you think she’s earned the benefit of the doubt?” insisted Main Course. “We talked about it this morning. She’s not trying to do an end run around me to get to Scootaloo. She’s a better pony than that.”

“Or at least that’s what she says. Because it’s not like she’s ever manipulated your feelings for her before,” said Silver Scroll, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Don’t try to deny that you have feelings for her, either. I’ve seen the way you get all dreamy-eyed when you talk about her. I just that you were smart enough to have learned your lesson by now.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about her. And I don’t want to talk about this right now,” said Main, his voice threatening to rise above the furious whisper they were conversing in.

“Fine,” said Silver Scroll, “but you’re playing with fire, Main. You aren’t the love ‘em and leave ‘em sort, and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Remember that mare you had a crush on in culinary school? Pepper, I think? When she shot you down you moped for nearly a month, and I don’t especially like mopey, whiny Main Course.” She shook her head but then leaned over and gave him an affectionate nuzzle. “You dumb lug. It’s a good thing I love you or I don’t know how I’d put up with you. When you ignore my advice and she breaks your heart I’ll be there to help you pick up the pieces.”

Despite the condescending tone, Main Course returned the gesture. “It’ll be fine, Silver. It’s not going to happen again. I got it out of my system. Ebby and I can just be friends.”

They settled down onto the grass as the stage lights came up and colts and fillies began to march out onto the stage for the opening scene, the colt in the fake mustache complaining to his ‘wife’ about the rabbit that was sneaking under his fence and digging up his crops. When Scootaloo appeared on the stage with her gem-encrusted prop shovel, he silently mouthed her line along with her as she spoke the awkward, stilted dialogue. He found that a grin had crept up on him unawares as the moment passed.

He glanced across the field. On the other side of the audience, he spotted Ebby in the gloom. In the low light, he could just make out her smile and the tear running down her cheek.

----------------------------

“And how did you feel about that?”

Main Course couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Briggs’ question, not for the first time. He’d expected the revelation he’d had sex with one of the doctor’s other clients who was also the mother of a third to provoke a bit more of a reaction, but not much seemed to get much of a rise out of the stallion. He settled a bit deeper into the overstuffed chair, one he’d never found the right spot in to be comfortable throughout these sessions. At least this was the last one before FPS would leave him alone. He was looking forward to reclaiming the hour of precious free time each week. “It was a mistake. We discussed it afterwards and came to the mutual decision that it couldn’t happen again. I just figured Ebby would mention it and didn’t want you thinking that I was trying to hide anything.”

Briggs scribbled something down onto the ever-present notepad. “Do you feel like it’s something you need to hide?”

“Well, yeah,” said Main Course, “I mean, obviously. I’m not going to share intimate details of my sex life with Scootaloo, especially not when it involves the mare she’s so uncomfortable around. I think it’s best for everypony involved if we just pretend that night never happened.”

Putting down the notepad, Briggs looked askance at Main Course from his spot next to the aquarium that sat on the little table underneath the window. “Yes, I often tell my patients that denial and suppressing their feelings is the best course of action.”

“Was that sarcasm?” asked Main, raising an eyebrow. Briggs’ delivery had been so deadpan he legitimately couldn’t tell.

“It was,” he replied. “Listen Main, I know this is our last session together, and I know you’ve been counting down the minutes until you don’t have to put up with me anymore. So I want you to know that no matter what you say to me now, I’ve already decided to recommend leaving Scootaloo right where she is. I’m confident you’ll be a good father to her.”

“Great,” said Main Course, rising up from his chair. “Can I go then?”

“No. Sit,” ordered Briggs. Reluctantly, Main Course returned to his seat. “How do you feel about Ebby?”

Main Course shrugged. “Look, doctor, I have an awful lot on my plate right now. Ebby thinks it’s a bad idea, my sister thinks it’s a bad idea, I’m sure Scootaloo would think it’s a bad idea if I told her, I have a business partner coming to town tonight and I’m still not sure what I’m going to tell her when she does. I don’t have time for that right now.”

“Fascinating,” said Briggs in a tone that suggested he was anything but fascinated, “not fascinating enough that I didn’t notice you dodging the question I actually asked, though. How do you feel about Ebony?”

“She’s...” Main Course trailed off, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “She’s been a really bad mother to Scootaloo. I’m not overlooking that. I’m not about to force Scootaloo to talk to her again just because I slept with her either. I’m fine with what I have with her now. We meet up once a week, while Scootaloo is here with you, and we just talk.” Main Course smiled as he reminisced. “She, heh, you should hear what she told me the other day about—”

“Changing the subject,” interrupted Briggs. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Fine. I like her, okay?” said Main Course, knocking the chair back as he stood up again and subconsciously leaned towards Briggs. “You found me out. I feel good around her. I want to get to know her better. I want us to have a chance together but I know that isn’t going to happen because the filly who we both care vastly more about despises her and won’t even be in the same room as she is. We’re not going to get a happy ending, we’re not ever going to be a family together, we’re not ever going to be anything and thank you so much for reminding me of that!” He realized that he’d started shouting at some point, and lowered his voice. “Sorry. I’m just not sure what you really want from me.”

“Acknowledging your own feelings would be a start,” said Briggs. “Like I said earlier, you like being the good guy. The pony everypony can count on. The rock. How often do you ask yourself that sort of question?”

Main Course frowned. “What sort?”

“The selfish sort,” replied Briggs as he glanced at the clock on the wall behind Main Course. “How often do you do what you want to do instead of what’s expected of you? Or put your needs ahead of somepony else’s? Burying the way you feel isn’t a solution, just a bandage over the real problem.”

“I don’t have a problem,” growled Main Course. “I have a business that I run and a daughter to focus on. What I don’t have is time for stupid flights of fancy that are going to end up hurting somepony else.”

“You mean like the restaurant you just opened up?” asked Briggs. “From what you’ve told me, there’s no way you can stay here in Ponyville with Scootaloo and still honor the obligation you feel towards your business partner. So which of them do you plan to disappoint?”

“I’m... I’m going to—”

“We’re out of time,” said Briggs. Main Course looked up at the clock behind him. Indeed, his final appointment had flown by. “You’re welcome to come back and we can continue our sessions together, but if you don’t I have a few suggestions for you.”

“Like what?” asked Main Course. He didn’t want to come back here again. Finally, he could put this whole stupid exercise behind him.

“Like you should try being a selfish jerk a little more often,” said Briggs. When Main Course didn’t respond he continued. “You’re a good stallion, Main. I think you’re going to be great at whatever you eventually set your mind towards. But I’m not sure you’ll be happy doing it if you let others’ ideas and priorities shape yours. Taking on Scootaloo as your daughter was stupid. Sleeping with Ebony was stupid too. But they were an honest sort of stupid that I suspect you don’t allow yourself to indulge in very often."

“I can’t afford to,” replied Main Course. He felt a great deal less sure of himself than he had when he’d arrived, but then that was how he always felt at the end of these sessions. “Ponies depend on me. Besides, I’m doing exactly what I want to do. I love running the Knoll, I love Scootaloo, and I’m sure I’ll be happy anywhere as long as I have those. Why try to convince me otherwise?”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” said Briggs. “All I’m here to do is help you understand yourself a bit better, and make sure your daughter is safe in your hooves.”

“She is. I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her,” said Main Course. “It’s probably good that you’re helping Scoots and Ebby, but I’m doing just fine. Don’t try to make a problem where there isn’t one. We’re done here, aren’t we?”

“If you want us to be, then yes we are. Please think about what I’ve said, though.”

“Sure. I’ll think about it,” said Main Course without really meaning it, “I’m sure you’re eager to write up your final report, and I need to start prepping for lunch.” He was about to walk out of the office for good when he stopped. “Sorry,” he said as he turned around again, “I’d rather not leave on that note. I really do appreciate the time you took to meet with me, and what you’re doing for Scootaloo. I didn’t mean to snap at you, it’s just...”

“A sensitive issue. I understand,” said Briggs. He got up from his seat. “Why don’t I walk you out?” The two stallions walked through the waiting room together, empty except for the receptionist scribbling something down with a quill. She nodded to Briggs before returning to her work. “As you know, it would be unethical for me to tell you anything another patient said in our sessions together,” he said as they reached the front door. “Still, I have this strange hunch that things between the three of you are going to work out just fine.” He winked at Main Course as he waved goodbye and opened the door for him.

Main Course walked out with a great deal on his mind, turning over the last few words Briggs had said. He only had another hour to run to the market and stock up before he’d need to get started in the kitchen or he’d fall behind before the meal had even started. The last thing he needed right now was a distraction.

“Main Course!” called out a voice he hadn’t heard for several months. He turned around and plastered a smile on his face even as he felt his stomach drop.

“Grace? What are you doing here?”

His partner trotted up to him and gave him a big hug. Main was too stunned to return it for several seconds. “I caught an earlier train. I just couldn’t wait to see you again, you know?”

He looked her over. She was a bit leaner than he remembered, which would make sense if she was teaching now instead of hanging around a kitchen all day, but otherwise just as he remembered her. “I like the new manecut.”

“Oh, thanks. It’s a big improvement over being half burned off, right?” she asked as she ran a hoof across her bangs. “I like it shorter. It’s a lot easier to deal with in the mornings. Now come on, tell me everything! I can’t wait to see the refurbished Knoll, and you adopted a filly too?”

“Yeah, it’s been a crazy couple of months,” admitted Main Course. “I was just about to go shopping, actually. I’ll fill you in if you don’t mind tagging along.”

“Absolutely. I won’t get in your way. Actually, I was thinking I could join you in the kitchen tonight. It can’t be easy to handle an entire service by yourself, and I miss cooking with you. Besides, it isn’t like there’s much else to do in this town. You must be getting a little stir crazy living somewhere so dull.”

“I haven’t really had time to get bored,” said Main Course. He saw Rarity turn a corner down the street, and found himself grateful for an excuse to change the subject. “Come on, let me introduce you to some of the other ponies who live around here...”

---------------------------

By the end of the dinner rush, Main Course found himself wondering how he’d managed for all these months without having another pony helping him in the kitchen. He and Grace hadn’t taken more than a few minutes to fall back into their usual dynamic, working together just like back in the old days. Just having another pony to talk to and joke with while they worked made the hours fly by.

“I still don’t get the pink one’s system for numbering tables,” said Grace as she poured a ring of bearnaise sauce around several thick slices of butternut squash they’d found on sale that morning.

“I know it’s weird, but it does make an odd sort of sense when you get used to it,” Main replied. “The whole town’s like that, really.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be happy to get back to normal when you move back to Manehattan, right?”

“Hey, could you roast these pumpkin wedges for me really quick?” asked Main Course. For the entire day, he’d been diligently changing the subject whenever the future came up. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to keep Grace’s focus off it for very much longer without her becoming suspicious.

As the last few diners paid their bill and left, Grace cracked her neck to one side. “I forgot how tired I got after a whole shift of this. Teaching’s making me go soft.”

“Do you like it? Teaching, I mean,” asked Main Course.

“It’s alright, just different. It’s nice to get home in time to cook dinner for my family instead of a hundred strangers.” Her stomach growled. “Speaking of dinner, what’s left over from tonight?” The two went through the time-honored ritual of pulling together two meals for themselves out of odds and ends that were left over from the night’s service and carried their plates out to the dining area. Hanging their hats and aprons on the back of their chairs, they settled down to eat. “I still can’t believe you got this place for five thousand bits. It’s a lot nicer than I thought it would be.”

“You didn’t see it before I fixed it up. I probably put in at least that much on top of the purchase price just refurbishing it,” he said as he bit into a hunk of garlic bread. “How’s your soup?”

“Really good. Better than I would have expected. I have no idea how you’ve managed to run this place by yourself, but all the practice is making you a better cook. That’s one lucky filly you adopted.”

“I’ve been teaching her some of the basics in my downtime. Helped me to remaster the fundamentals, and she’s really coming along. Sorry you didn’t get to meet her tonight, but you will tomorrow. She usually slips in the back and heads upstairs when she’s done playing with her friends. Most evenings I barely even see her before I close for the night.”

“Well, I can’t wait to introduce her to Windy. She’ll love having a new playmate her own age.”

“Yeah, um, about that,” said Main Course. No way to put this off any longer. “I was thinking maybe she could stay here?”

“Stay where? I don’t think whoever we sell this place to would appreciate having a tenant living upstairs,” said Grace, putting her fork down.

“What if we didn’t sell it?”

Grace stared at him for several seconds, irritation creeping into her expression. “What do you mean ‘if we didn’t sell it?’ Main, the entire point of opening this place up was so you could sell it and use the money to reopen in Manehattan. Now we’re just a month from finally getting the insurance money and you’re getting cold hooves?” she asked, slowly and deliberately enunciating every word in the way she always did when she was stopping herself from getting mad. “Heck, I had a mare ask me about buying the place a little over a month ago. Ebony something.”

“We’ve met, believe me,” said Main Course. “She’s Scootaloo’s mother, actually. It’s complicated.”

“Then explain it,” said Grace, her voice rising in volume. “For Celestia’s sake, Main, this is exactly what I was afraid of when you bought this place. You promised me that it didn’t mean anything to you and you weren’t going to go native like this. Your life is in Manehattan, and now suddenly you have a marefriend and a foal in some backwater, two-bit town? What the buck?”

“I... things have been changing for me since I got here, Grace. I like it here, a lot more than I expected to. I’ve made more friends here in the last four months than I did in the last three years of living in Manehattan, and—”

“So you’re just ditching me? We started the Knoll together, Main, I don’t want to run it without you,” said Grace. “I’m sure your friends will write, and Scootaloo will make new friends of her own.”

“Maybe there’s a compromise here,” suggested Main Course. He’d been wracking his brain all week trying to come up with one. “Why don’t we keep both places open? I could work part time in both of them a couple days a week.”

“You want to run two restaurants? At the same time? I know you like the business, but that’s beyond insane. You can’t half-ass that kind of thing. You have to choose one or you’ll lose both of them, and it shouldn’t be that tough of a choice.”

"It is, though,” said Main Course. “I don’t want to choose between Ponyville and Manehattan. Either way I’d be letting somepony down.”

“Well, tough. That’s life. I know you don’t like making the hard decisions, that’s always been something I’m better at than you are. Because we’re a team, and a damn good one. Now you want to throw that away? I thought I meant more to you than that,” said Grace. She blinked away the tears starting to mist up in her eyes.

“You do mean a lot to me, Grace, you know that. But there are other ponies in my life now who mean a lot to me too. I have to think about what’s best for all of them.”

“I can’t even talk to you right now,” said Grace, abruptly standing up from the table. “I need to sleep on this, and you need to figure out what the hell really matters to you. I thought it was me, but clearly I was wrong about that. You know where to find me when you come to your senses and realize that Manehattan is where you belong.”

“What if you came to live in Ponyville? It’s a great town,” Main called after her as she walked towards the door.

“I have a life in Manehattan. I’m not uprooting my entire family to move based on your selfish little fantasy,” she replied as she walked away. Her horn glowed as the front door swung open. “Sell the Knoll, Main. Then things will go back to the way they should be.”

Main Course winced as she walked out, slamming the door behind her. “Well, that could have gone better,” he muttered to himself.

“Daddy?” asked Scootaloo’s voice from behind him.

Main Course went rigid as he turned around. Standing it the doorway leading to the back room and the stairs was Scootaloo, trembling in her favorite set of purple pajamas. “Scootaloo? Were you listening to—”

“You’re not really gonna sell the Knoll, right?” she asked, cutting him off. Main sat there trying to figure out what to tell her. “Right?”

Change of Heart

CHANGE OF HEART

“So obviously you told her you weren’t going to sell, right?” asked Ebby from across the table, stabbing her fork into the plate of steaming hot french toast.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure she really believed me,” said Main Course, listlessly pushing the southwestern omelet around his plate. It smelled pretty good, but he found himself without much of an appetite. “Level with me, Ebby. How badly do you think I screwed up? Scootaloo wouldn’t talk to me at all this morning. I just hope Briggs is having better luck with her.”

“Hmm...” she said, ruminating as she chewed a mouthful of french toast, sending a light dusting of powdered sugar falling onto her coat. “I’d say four out of ten. She’s probably going to be mad at you for not telling her about Manehattan sooner, but if you convince her you aren’t going to take her away she’ll get over it.” She shrugged. “Then again I’m probably the last pony who should be giving out parenting advice where Scootaloo is concerned, so take it for what it’s worth.”

“I just figured I’d listen to what you said, then do the exact opposite and it would all work out fine,” said Main Course with a grin as she swatted at him from across the table. “If I did have to move to Manehattan, though, what would you do?”

“I guess I’d pick up and move after you. I’d follow you and Scootaloo to the ends of Equestria if I had to.” She paused. “I swear that sounded less creepy in my head. But I like it here too. It feels like...”

“...a fresh start?” asked Main Course.

Ebby smiled. “Something like that. Canterlot had a lot of bad memories, and I feel more like the pony I want to be when I’m here. Plus I’m starting to make a few new friends. Pinkie Pie even offered to throw me a party for my birthday in a couple weeks.”

“You asked for a Pinkie Party? You’re braver than I thought,” said Main Course.

“Well, it’s more like she popped out of a rain barrel and informed me that she’d be throwing it for me. Maybe that’s what you need to convince Grace to let you stay here; spring Pinkie on her.”

“I want her to come around, not go mad.” He finally took a bite of his omelet. It was a bit bland for his taste and he reached for the salt shaker. Ebby, distracted by the clatter of falling silverware at another table, reached for it at the same time. Their hooves met in the middle of the table, and they both stared at one another for a second before yanking them apart again.

“Sorry,” said Ebby. Her voice cracked a bit and she coughed to clear her throat. “You go ahead and take it first. I can be patient.”

Main Course tipped the shaker over his plate and jostled out a few of the tasty crystals before passing it back. A field of Ebby’s magic wrapped around it and began to pour out a steady stream onto her hash browns. When she kept pouring for more than a second, Main looked up at her with concern. He found her staring at something behind him.

“Hi Dad. Hi... Ebby,” said Scootaloo.

Main Course spun around to see her standing a few lengths away from the table, with Briggs by her side. “Scootaloo? Was I supposed to pick you up already?”

Briggs shook his head. “No, no, you aren’t late. Scootaloo and I just thought we’d end this session with a little field trip.” He took a seat beside Ebby, while Scootaloo slid into the booth next to Main, her hoof clutching to his under the table.

“It’s nice to see you again, Scootaloo,” said Ebby, choosing each word slowly and cautiously. “I really enjoyed seeing you in the play. You were very good.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Scootaloo. She reached out and took a piece of Main Course’s toast from his plate and began to munch on it, eyes darting up from the surface of the table to the unmoving Ebby and back down every few moments. “Um, can I ask you for a favor?”

“Anything,” replied Ebby. “Just name it.”

“Can you convince Dad not to sell the Knoll? His friend from last night is trying to take us away, but I don’t want to go.”

“We were just talking about that,” said Main Course. “It’s like I told you, I’m not going to.”

“I guess,” said Scootaloo, not sounding convinced, “but you were talking like you’d told her that you would. How come?”

Main Course bit his lip. “When I moved here from Manehattan, I didn’t think I’d be living here permanently. I always meant to, well, to leave.” He winced as Scootaloo whimpered, and he caught Briggs regarding him flatly from the other side of the table. “Then I found you, though. You changed my mind, Scootaloo. I promise I’m not going to take you anywhere, okay?”

Scootaloo looked up at him for several seconds, but then smiled a little and nodded. “Okay. Thanks Dad. Oh, one other thing?”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Why did she say that you had a marefriend?”

Across the table, Ebby nearly snorted up a sip of her coffee, and she began to let out a hacking cough. “Sorry,” she croaked as the coughing fit died down, “went down the wrong pipe.”

Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed as she looked over at Ebby, and Main Course jumped in before she could come to any conclusions. “Scoots, I can honestly say that I’m not seeing anypony romantically. You and the Knoll are my biggest priorities.”

“And there’s nopony who you want to be your very special somepony?” asked Scootaloo.

Main Course didn’t dare allow himself to look over at Ebby. “I promise that when I find her, I’ll make sure she’s somepony you’re okay with, how about that?”

Scootaloo frowned, but nodded her head. “Well, I should get back to my office for my next appointment,” said Briggs, standing up from his seat. “Ebby, I’ll see you tomorrow. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day. This was a very good suggestion, Scootaloo. I’ll have to try these little field trips with some of my other patients.” With that he got up and left the diner.

Scootaloo took a deep breath, and looked over at Ebby. “Can we all walk back to the Knoll?”

“Sure,” said Main Course. Ebby nodded silently as well, and once the three of them had paid their check they began the long walk back home, Scootaloo leading the way.

They had just stopped on a street corner to let a cart go by in the street when Scootaloo broke the silence they’d been walking in. “Hey, Ebby? Is it... is it hard for you not to drink? Now, I mean.”

“Sometimes,” Ebby admitted. “Even now, there are times when I want to more than anything else in the world. But I promised you, and that’s more important. It... wasn’t always, but it is now.” Ebby turned her gaze and looked straight at Main Course, avoiding Scootaloo’s eyes. “If getting what I want would hurt you, then I just have to accept that I can’t have it no matter how painful that is.”

“Oh,” replied Scootaloo, and stepped out to cross the street without saying anything else.

When the three of them reached the Knoll, they all froze when they saw the pony waiting for them on the front stoop. “Hey Main,” said Grace, a sheepish smile on her face.

“Look Grace, I—” began Main Course, but Grace raised a hoof and cut him off.

“Hang on, I want to go first,” she said. “I’m sorry about how I blew up at you last night. I was really, really upset with the way you sprung that on me, and a little scared too.”

“Scared? Why?” asked Main Course.

“Because it felt like you’d just spontaneously decided that you didn’t want to be a part of my life anymore. I mean, you promised me when you left that you were going to come back to Manehattan, then four months of barely any contact while I made plans around the assumption that you’d been telling the truth. Suddenly I show up to meet this filly of yours and you announce you’re staying without even asking me for my input. I think it’s fair to say we both could have handled it better.”

“Agreed,” said Main Course. “Of course I don’t want to cut you out of my life, Grace. The whole reason I didn’t tell you was I was trying to think of some kind of compromise, but I should have given you more of a warning. So you’re alright with me staying here?”

Grace frowned. “I didn’t say that. I’m still going to try to talk you into changing your mind and selling.”

Scootaloo huddled up against Main Course. “Daddy, you promised.”

Main Course opened his mouth to speak, but Ebby beat him to the punch. “Grace, I know it’s none of my business but could I give you some unsolicited advice?”

“Sure,” said Grace with a shrug.

“I know exactly how badly you want Main Course to come back and for things to go back to the way they were before. I really do. But trust me when I say the harder you try to force somepony you care about to do something they don’t want to do, the harder they’ll pull away from you.” She looked down at Scootaloo with a sad smile, and the filly stared back up at her with an unreadable expression on her face. “The hardest thing in the world is to let somepony you love go.”

Grace slowly nodded her head. “The best I can do is promise to keep an open mind to the possibility, alright?”

“You should come around town with us and meet all our friends,” volunteered Scootaloo. “We’re going to see them anyway, so I can give them the invitations.”

Grace frowned. “What invitations?”

Main Course draped a foreleg over Scootaloo. “Scootaloo asked me if she could throw a little dinner party for some of her friends on her birthday in a couple of weeks.”

“Dad’s showed me all kinds of things I can make. I’m gonna cook for everypony all by myself, just like he does! We need to go hoof out the invitations, though.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” said Ebby. “I’m sure everything you make for them will be delicious.” She stood there in awkward silence for a few seconds longer before she cleared her throat. “Well, it sounds like you have a busy day planned, so I’ll let you get to it. It was wonderful to see you again, Scootaloo.” She leaned down and opened a foreleg for a hug, but Scootaloo just stared at her. The half-smile on Ebby’s face slowly vanished as she brought it back down to the ground. “Goodbye, I guess.” She turned and trotted away while Scootaloo’s eyes followed her retreating form.

She was just about to turn the corner when Scootaloo darted after her. “Mom! Wait!” Ebby froze, and Scootaloo skidded to a halt a little ways away from her as Main Course chased after them. Once she’d stopped, her earlier surge of courage disappeared as quickly as it had come on. “Um...” said Scootaloo, looking down at the dusty road, “do you maybe want to come over that night?”

Slowly turning around, Ebby’s smile returned in full force. “Of course. I would love to.”

“You have to promise me that you won’t embarass me in front of my friends, though,” insisted Scootaloo.

Ebby chuckled. “Well, I’m not going to make a promise I can’t be sure I’ll be able to keep, but I’ll try my hardest to restrain myself.” Her expression softened. “Thank you, sweetie. You won’t regret this.”

“I better not,” she muttered, crossing her forelegs over her chest. She retreated to Main Course, and Ebby waved goodbye as she continued down the little side street.

Grace trotted up to where they were standing. “So that was your mother?”

Scootaloo stared at the mouth of the alleyway where Ebby had been standing a moment ago, and didn’t answer for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Yeah. She’s my mother.”

------------------------

Grace, Main Course, and Scootaloo got back to the Knoll later that afternoon, after they’d made the rounds through Ponyville hunting down Scootaloo’s dinner guests. “Are you sure you’ll be able to handle making food for all of them yourself, Scootaloo? Your friends, their sisters, Rainbow Dash, your mom and dad, and don’t forget yourself. That’s a tall order for one filly to handle.”

“She’s gonna do great,” said Main Course, ruffling Scootaloo’s mane. “Although if you want help doing any of the prep work—”

“No. This is my dinner and I’m gonna cook it,” interrupted Scootaloo.

“Go on in, Scootaloo, I need to talk to your dad for a minute,” said Grace. When she hesitated, Grace rolled her eyes. “Relax, I’m not going to shoot him with a tranquilizer dart and smuggle him back to Manehattan. We’ll be right behind you.” Once Scootaloo had shut the front door behind her, Grace looked over at Main Course. “Quite a group of friends you’ve assembled here. I thought Rainbow Dash was going to clobber me when Scootaloo told her I was trying to get you to come back with me.”

“Trust me, I’m the one she would clobber,” said Main Course. An awkward silence fell over them for a few seconds.

“You know, it’s irrational but when I got to my hotel room last night I was actually madder at Scootaloo for screwing up our plans than I was at you. Hard to stay mad at somepony so adorable though.”

Main Course grinned. “She’s something special, all right.” Another awkward pause. “I haven’t changed my mind about staying. If it was your daughter you’d do the exact same thing.”

“You’re right, I would. I wish I’d locked you in a basement back in Manehattan instead of letting you come here and fall in love with this place, but I do understand why you did.” She sniffled and looked away as she wiped something off her cheek.

“Grace, are you crying?” asked Main Course.

“I’m just really gonna miss you, Main,” she replied. “Still, this is what’s best for both of you and I’m not going to get in the way of that. I’ll find a way to make the Manehattan Knoll work without you.”

“Thanks, Grace.”

“You better come back and visit, though. I burned one Knoll down, the second one won’t be an accident if you don’t,” she said with a grin.

Main Course matched the grin with one of his own. “Better make sure my insurance policy is up to date. The rates around here are all really high for some reason.”

“Weird. Now come on, lets get inside before Scootaloo starts to think I really have abducted you. I’ll give her some quick lessons on sauces before we start on dinner. That way she won’t boil ‘em down too thick like you always do and embarrass you in front of your marefriend.”

She started to advance towards the door, but stopped when Main Course grabbed her tail. “That’s another thing. For the love of Celestia, do not call Ebby my marefriend in front of Scootaloo.”

“Why not? They looked like they were getting along okay this morning.”

“If they were, then it’s a new development. Finding out what I told you about the night at her apartment would be a very bad thing. Please, Grace, I’m begging you.”

“Fine, fine,” said Grace with an exasperated shake of her head. “You never could do things the easy way. I swear, sometimes I think you like making your life more complicated. Don’t worry though, your secret’s safe with me.”

Main Course breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Oh, when I get home tomorrow I’m going to do a full tally of how many you owe me, and I promise you it’s going to be a lot more than one,” said Grace. She tilted her head towards the door. “Right now though, I want to see what you’re teaching your daughter.”

-------------------------------

Scootaloo and Main Course saw Grace off on the train together the following morning, Main Course kept waving until it had almost disappeared from sight, then they started the return trip to the Knoll. “I have to admit, Scoots, I was surprised that you invited Ebby to your birthday dinner,” said Main Course.

“Do you think that was a bad idea?” she asked.

“No. No, no, no, nothing like that,” he answered, waving her off the idea. “I was just wondering what made you change your mind. It isn’t going to be like the play where you can’t tell she’s there.”

Scootaloo went quiet for another block. “A couple things, I guess. I want her to really be the way she says she is, Dad. I want to believe she’s actually better, but I see her and I just... I can’t quite wrap my head around it yet. But that wasn’t what got me to make up my mind.”

“What was?”

“You broke your promise, too,” said Scootaloo quietly. “You promised Grace that you’d move back with her, but then you changed your mind and she forgave you anyway.”

Main Course winced at the perfectly fair accusation. He should have known that Scootaloo would look at it from that angle. “My promise to you was more important. That’s why I had to.”

“I know, and I’m glad you did. But it was still a bad thing to do, just like what I did back in the woods that night. Doctor Inkblot said everypony does bad stuff sometimes, and if even you do...” she trailed off.

“Well, I think it was a very nice thing you did. I’m sure she appreciates the chance.”

“It’s her last one,” said Scootaloo. “Dad, stop for a second?” Main Course did, and turned to look at her. “I know she’s your friend, but I mean it. If she messes this up, I’m done with her. Forever. And I want you to promise me that you’ll be done with her too. That means that I don’t see her anymore, and neither do you.”

Main Course opened his mouth to protest, but then saw the look of barely-suppressed anger in her eyes. “Fine,” he said, “if she hurts you in any way, I’ll cut her out of our lives completely. You have my word.”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Scootaloo. She started walking again, and Main Course trotted alongside her lost in his own thoughts.

Dear Celestia, he prayed fervently to the heavens above, please don’t let Ebby screw this up.

Happy Birthdays

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

“Rainbow Dash! Glad you could make it!”

Scootaloo poked her head out of the kitchen as she heard Main Course’s words, and trotted over to greet the first guest to arrive as well. Main Course kept a close eye on her as she stepped gingerly across the room, making sure she didn’t trip over the too-large apron she’d borrowed from him. Even tied as tightly as he’d been able to make it, it still wrapped nearly around her entire body and draped over the base of her tail. “Heya, squirt. Happy birthday!” said Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo gave her a hug. “Thanks for coming, Rainbow.”

“Think I’d pass up a free meal? No way, kiddo,” she said, returning the hug. “I saw Applejack and Apple Bloom on their way to Rarity’s a few minutes ago, so I bet they’ll be here any second too.”

“Ooh, I better put out the appetizer stuff, then,” said Scootaloo. She turned and ran back for the kitchen.

“Remember to wash your hooves again!” Main Course called after her.

The door opened again, and sure enough the others were there, as well as Ebby following some distance behind them. “Hello, Main. Thank you so much for the invitation,” said Rarity.

“Ah brought some cider from our last batch. Wouldn’t be neighborly to come empty hooved,” said Applejack.

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that, Applejack,” said Main Course.

“Ignore him, AJ,” said Rainbow Dash. She was practically salivating with anticipation. “Please tell me it’s the good stuff, and not just the watered down kind.”

“Dash, we got fillies here who’ll be drinking it with us,” answered Applejack with a disapproving frown. Then she gave Rainbow Dash a sly wink. “I bet a few bottles of the stuff that’s got a bit of kick to it slipped in by accident, though. I’ll split one with you.”

“Yesssss!” declared Dash, pumping her hoof in the air. “You’re the best, Jackie.” Applejack began unloading bottles from her saddlebags, checking labels and leaving a few conspicuously off to one side as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked around. When Scootaloo appeared pushing a large cart of appetizer fare out into the dining room, Main Course took over for her so she could greet the fillies herself. He waved to Ebby as she walked in, and she smiled at him before hanging up her own saddlebags as well.

“Happy birthday!” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle said in unison.

“Thanks,” replied Scootaloo. “I know the big party isn’t until tomorrow, but I’m glad you could come to both.”

“Did you get any cool presents?” asked Sweetie Belle. “Rarity said I had to leave ours at home so we could give it to you with the others.”

“Dad said I had to do presents after dinner, but Aunt Silver Scroll came by and gave me hers earlier. Check it out!” Scootaloo ran into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a carved piece of wood. She took a deep breath, and blew into it as hard as she could. A blast of sound like the whistle of a train filled the room for several seconds.

“Whooooooooa,” said Apple Bloom. “That’s loud!”

“Will Silver Scroll be joining us tonight, Main?” asked Rarity with a hint of a manic twitch in her eye.

“She had a meeting she couldn’t get out of,” explained Main Course. That was fine with him, though. It gave him more time to plan out the slow, painful demise he’d be putting her through the next time he saw her, after all.

Main unloaded the cart onto the buffet table where Ebby was chatting with Rarity as she sipped her cider. “Thank you again for finishing the alterations so quickly, Rarity. Your work is amazing.” He took a moment to examine what she was wearing, a red dress that sparkled as she moved around and tiny little gems woven into the fabric itself caught the light. Something about her appearance seemed off, but he couldn’t put a hoof on it.

Rarity smiled, pleased with the compliment. “It was no trouble at all, dear. I know how you feel about being...” she glanced over at Main Course for just an instant, “...well covered. Anything to help a mare look her best.”

Main Course realized what it was that he found odd about Ebby; she wasn’t wearing the pendant with the orange gemstone he was used to seeing her with. Before he could ask her where it was, Applejack and Rainbow Dash came over carrying their drinks. They placed their cups down and gave a low whistle. “Whoa, nice spread,” said Rainbow. “Scootaloo made all this?”

He couldn’t help but beam with pride as he surveyed what she’d made. Grilled vegetable kebabs with a little bowl of peanut sauce for dipping. A loaf of garlic bread still warm from the oven. “What’re those?” asked Applejack, pointing a hoof at a plate on the edge of the table.

“Fried jalapenos,” answered Main Course. While he’d been happy to let Scootaloo do almost all of the preparation work, he’d drawn the line at letting her use the fryer herself. Grudgingly, she had eventually given in and let him assist her with that one step. “Careful. They have a lot of kick.”

Rainbow Dash nudged Applejack’s side. “Hey. Bet I can handle more of them than you can.”

Applejack grinned. “You? Ha! I bet I can eat twice as many of ‘em and not even break a sweat.”

“No, really,” said Main Course, “they’re quite spicy.”

The mares ignored him. “Rarity, you want in on this? It’ll be fun,” said Rainbow Dash.

“I think not,” said Rarity. “I happen to pride myself on a refined palate, and I see no reason to sully it for some silly competition.”

“Ah, I knew you’d be lame about it. What about you Ebby? Come on, I’ll even tell Scootaloo that you were cool enough to try to keep up with me.”

Ebby’s ears perked up at the offer. She thought it over for a moment, then put her own cup down next to the others. “Sure, why not?”

“Ugh. Really, Ebony?” asked Rarity. “Well, it seem Main Course and I are the only sane ponies here, but I will watch you realize what foals you’re making of yourselves.” She reached across the table and took one of the kebabs, daintily dipping it into the sauce before hovering it over a small cocktail napkin.

“Alright, load us up three plates, Dash,” said Applejack. “Ebby, here’s the rules. We’ll each pop ‘em in at the same time. You gotta chew ‘em up and swallow for it to count. First pony to grab their drink or spit one out loses. Oh, and if you puke ‘em up before the end of the contest you’re disqualified.”

“What an appetizing mental image,” said Rarity. “Why am I friends with any of you, again?”

Rainbow Dash put a plate with a little pile of the fried peppers in front of each of them. “Ready? Alright, round one, go.”

All three mares picked up one of the hors d'oeuvres and tossed it into their mouth. Ebby’s face flushed as the fried crust broke open and the juices hit her tongue. She coughed, but choked it down. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Careful. It builds,” said Main. Though Applejack and Rainbow Dash had gone red in the face as well, they stuck out their tongues at one another to prove that they’d swallowed.

“Piece of cake,” said Rainbow Dash, but her cocky smile wasn’t quite as broad as before. “Ready for the next one, or are you quitting already?”

“Heck, no. You?” asked Applejack. She removed her hat and started to fan herself with it.

“You wish. Let’s do it.”

A second pepper followed the first, then a third, then a fourth. None of the mares seemed to be doing very well. “You... ready... to give up... yet?” panted Applejack.

“Never... felt... better,” replied Rainbow Dash.

They all picked up their fifth pepper, as Rarity shook her head at the display.

“Go Applejack! You can do it!” cheered Apple Bloom from where she and Sweetie Belle had come over to watch the impromptu competition. The three mares bit down on the peppers, and a little rivulet of juice ran down Rainbow Dash’s chin.

Applejack, it seemed, had reached her limit. With a final, sputtering cough she spit the half-chewed pepper back out onto her plate and reached over to grab her drink. She guzzled the entire glass in one chug, before belching and slamming a hoof down on the table. “Consarn it!”

“Ha! Yes! I win!” declared a triumphant Rainbow Dash, until a hoof tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around to see Ebby standing there sticking her tongue out.

“Aren’t you forgetting somepony?” she asked. Her confident tone was undermined by the worrying gurgle that her stomach gave off.

Rainbow Dash gave an appreciative whistle. “You’re tougher than you look, I’ll give you that. But I don’t lose.”

Ebby winced, but picked up a sixth pepper with a shaky hoof. “If you’re talking you aren’t chewing.”

Rainbow Dash grinned and picked up a pepper of her own. At some unspoken signal they both put them into their mouths and bit. Ebby made a strange, high pitched whining sound as she contorted her face. Tears ran down her cheeks. Then her eyes opened wide and, deciding she couldn’t take any more, she spat the pepper out and started to hack and cough. She grabbed one of the other cups and drank it just as quickly as Applejack had.

“Whoo! I’m the champion!” declared Rainbow Dash. “Who’s the best? I’m the best. Who’s number one? I’m—” she suddenly snapped her mouth shut and doubled over clutching her stomach. “Uh, where’s your bathroom?”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Come quick. And try not to get anything on me while I’m holding your mane out of your face.” She whisked Rainbow Dash away towards the restroom.

“Ebby? Are you alright?” She was still hacking and coughing, and it was beginning to sound worse instead of better. She looked up at him with desperate eyes and shook her head before running off, still coughing, towards the other room.

“You’d best go and check on her,” said Rarity as she herded the two curious fillies away.

“Ebby?” asked Main Course as he stuck his head inside the door to the small secondary dining room she’d run through a moment ago. She was standing in the far corner, her back rising and falling like she was hyperventilating.

“Stupid. I’m so stupid,” she muttered without turning around.

“Come on, it was just a dumb contest. There’s no reason to be upset. Scootaloo will probably be impressed that—”

“Not that,” said Ebby. “I drank out of the wrong cup, Main. I must have grabbed one of theirs without realizing. It was the hard cider, I can taste it.” She started to beat her forehead against the wall. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. My last chance. I can’t believe I blew my last chance, and like that?”

“Hey. Hey!” said Main Course. He walked over to her and grabbed her cheeks in his hooves. “It was an accident, and it wasn’t like it was that much. One cup of cider isn’t going to get you drunk.”

“That’s how it starts, though,” she replied, and Main could see the panic growing in her eyes. “You said it yourself, remember? I can’t have ‘just one.’ That’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that it feels really, really good.”

“Ebby, you drank it thirty seconds ago. It’s all in your head, okay? You’re stronger than this. You’re gonna get through the rest of this dinner just fine.”

“I’m not strong. I’m weak. I’m a horrible, weak pony. I’ll never be strong enough.”

“That’s just not true,” said Main Course. Ebby tried to turn her face away, but Main held it firmly in place. “You are one of the strongest ponies I know. Your love for your filly? That’s even stronger. She wants you here, Ebby! You’ve come so far already, don’t you dare even think about throwing it away. Now say it.” Ebby muttered under her breath. “Louder. I want you to hear yourself say it, and I want you to believe it.”

“I’m not thirsty,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“That’s right. Now again.”

“I’m not thirsty,” she repeated, in a normal speaking voice this time. She looked him dead on and gave a slow nod. “I’m. Not. Thirsty.”

Main Course pulled her into a hug. “You’re gonna be okay, Ebby. Promise me you’re gonna be okay.”

“I promise,” she said as she leaned into the hug. “Thank you, Main. For a second there I thought I was going to lose it, but I’ll be okay. How can I not be, with you looking out for me?”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” said Main Course. He felt the tension in his shoulders seep away.

“Why not?” asked Ebby. She pulled back from him. “Really, Main Course, why not? Your life would be so much easier if you hated me. One word from you to Scootaloo and she’d gladly cut me out of her life forever. Why are you taking such a crazy risk by being so good to me when I don’t deserve it?”

Main Course smiled at her and ran a hoof through her dark mane. “Because I’m a selfish jerk, you make me happy, and love makes ponies a little bit crazy.”

“Main, don’t—”

“I’m sick of pretending that I’m not, Ebby. I don’t want to keep lying to myself when the truth is so obvious.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “I love you too. Celestia preserve me, I know I shouldn’t but I love you too. If Scootaloo decides never to see me again after tonight, I’m glad that I at least told you that.”

They both stood up to return to the party, but then froze when they saw a third pony standing in the doorway watching them.

Main Course recovered first. “Geez, Rarity. Don’t sneak up on ponies like that. For a second there I thought you were Scootaloo.”

Rarity grinned. “I was enjoying the show too much to interrupt. I do bring a message, though. Dinner is served.”

Ebby chuckled. “Can you imagine if she’d stumbled in right then? She would have freaked out.”

“Rarity, if you could not mention this...”

“Your secret is safe with me,” promised Rarity. “Now hurry before the stew begins to grow cold.”

Main Course suppressed a groan. He’d suggested dozens upon dozens of dishes for an entree, but Scootaloo had fixated on one right from the start. A carrot goulash that Main Course had no idea how to make. He’d tried playing with it all sort of different ways, but he’d never gotten it to taste good. Everything else Scootaloo had made had come out so well, and Main Course just hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed if this didn’t.

The eight ponies sat down around the table, a big pot sitting in the middle with a bowl set at each place. Scootaloo wiped her hooves on the front of the apron she was still wearing and settled into her seat with a tired but happy grin on her face from the hours she’d spent in the kitchen. Rarity took it upon herself to ladle out the portions and pass them around, first to Scootaloo and the other Crusaders, then Applejack, a not-so-healthy-looking Rainbow Dash, Main Course, Ebby, and finally herself.

Seven of the ponies started eating right away, but Ebby just stared down at the goulash in front of her. “Scootaloo, I can’t believe you even remembered this.”

Main Course looked between them, confused. He took a bite, and sure enough the stew was just... not that good. The noodles were practically disintegrating, the carrot chunks were still much too firm, and the paprika was overpowering. “Have you made this before, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “No, but Uncle Snare Drum used to make it for us all the time when my father was out of town and he came over.”

Ebby slowly lowered her spoon and rested it on the plate, squeezing her eyes shut while the others watched. Then she took a deep breath and scooped up a big bite of it.

“Sorry it isn’t very good,” said Scootaloo. “I don’t know if I used a different kind of broth, or he knew a better recipe—”

“It’s absolutely perfect,” said Ebby. “It’s what I ordered the night that we...” she blushed. “Well, it was a dinner that he told me reminded him of the two of us.”

“Those were the nights I felt like I had a family,” said Scootaloo softly. “I wanted to see if it would work for my new family too.”

“Well I think you pulled it off,” said Main Course. “We’ll practice it together until it’s perfect. Maybe it won’t be exactly the same as it was back then, but it’ll be special in its own way.”

“It’s, umm...” said Sweetie Belle, grimacing as she swallowed. “I really like the pattern on the bowls?”

Applejack and Rarity made a valiant effort, and their bowls ended up half empty before they declared themselves full. Rainbow Dash managed almost three quarters of hers before she gave up, citing the lingering aftereffects of the jalapeno eating contest from earlier.

Ebby and Main Course, though, ate every single bite.

Ebby swallowed the last spoonful of the stew and let her spoon fall into the now empty bowl. “I guess it’s about time for birthday presents, then,” she said as she got up from the table and went to retrieve her gift from her saddlebags. When she returned she was carrying a little jewelry box with a ribbon wrapped around it, tied into a bow at the top. She knelt down on the floor next to Scootaloo’s seat and placed it on the table in front of her. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

Scootaloo pulled the end of the ribbon, untying it with a confused look on her face. She opened the box, and only grew more puzzled when she saw what was inside. “This looks like your pendant,” she said as she lifted the orange stone up in front of her face, letting it dangle gently on its silver chain.

“That’s because it is my pendant, Scootaloo. Only now it’s yours,” said Ebby with a little smile.

“But you wear this all the time. Why are you giving it to me?”

Ebby didn’t answer for a long moment. “Scootaloo, have I ever told you where I got this? My father gave it to my mother on the day I was born, and she passed it on to me the day you were. I wear it so much because I liked having a little piece of you close to my heart.” She leaned forward and nuzzled Scootaloo’s cheek, and Scootaloo didn’t pull away. “It might be a little early, but I hope someday you’ll be a mother too. You... might have decided by then that you don’t want me around to meet my grandfoals, so I needed to give it to you now.”

“But I... I don’t... I can’t,” stammered Scootaloo, holding the pendant out towards Ebby. Rather than taking it back, Ebby gently took Scootaloo’s other foreleg and placed her hooves together around it.

“Even if you don’t want to wear it, please keep it somewhere safe. It’s very precious to me.” Scootaloo stared down at the piece of jewelry without saying anything.

“Would you—” her voice cracked and she had to stop and collect herself. “Would you help me put it on?”

“Of course,” said Ebby. Her horn glowed as her magic undid the clasp and she guided both ends of the chain around Scootaloo’s neck with her hooves. There was a little click as they came together again, and Ebby released her grip. She rested her hooves on Scootaloo’s shoulders and let the pendant hang free. It gently swung from side to side before coming to rest near a faded pink stain on the white cloth of the apron over her chest.

Scootaloo looked at it, and then her whole body began to tremble. The first little sob cracked the dam, and a torrent of tears followed after. Scootaloo nearly launched herself off the chair into Ebby’s waiting forelegs, the orange stone of the pendant pressing into both of their chests. She clung to her as the sobs assaulted her body and the other ponies seated at the table looked on quietly. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had found their way close to their sisters’ sides. “Please be real,” Scootaloo finally whimpered when her sobbing had gotten under control.

“Real? What do you mean?” asked Ebby.

“Please be the real Mom,” said Scootaloo. “We came back from the trip and Uncle Snare Drum was gone and then it was like you were gone too. You were gone but there was... it was like there was this other mare who looked like you but she was always angry and sad and drunk, and I hated her. I hated her so much. I had to get stronger and learn to do everything on my own because there wasn’t anypony to help me. I got really good at it, but I don’t want to anymore. I just want my Mommy back.” She broke down into sobs again, rocking herself back and forth against Ebby’s chest. “I want my Mommy.”

For a long time they sat there like that, with Ebby stroking Scootaloo’s mane as she just repeated the last phrase over and over again. Finally she trailed off, and Ebby bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m here, and I always will be. I promise.” She looked over to Main Course, and through her tears gave him the happiest smile he’d ever seen on another pony.

The spell of the moment broke, and Main Course got up from his own chair to walk around to them. When he gently placed his own hoof on Scootaloo’s back, she immediately spun around and wrapped a foreleg around his neck, pulling his face against her and Ebby’s side with surprising strength. Once the initial surprise wore off, he shifted positions so he could get a foreleg around each of them. Ebby leaned her head against him as they held Scootaloo, still swaddled in the oversized apron, between them.

“Aww!” said Apple Bloom. She’d climbed into Applejack’s lap and snuggled up in a hug of her own.

“Do you think this means Scoots’ mom and dad will stop pretending they aren’t dating now?” Sweetie Belle asked her. She had edged over even closer to Rarity and was holding her hoof.

“Wait, what?” asked Main Course.

“I’m not stupid, Dad,” muttered Scootaloo from below. She sniffled and looked up. “Mom, I... I didn’t get you anything for your birthday. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” repeated Ebby, squeezing her a little tighter. “Scootaloo, this is the greatest birthday present I’ve ever gotten.”

“I’m not sure I can top this, but I got you something too, Scootaloo,” said Main Course. He quickly trotted into the kitchen and pulled the gift from where it had been hidden atop a high shelf, bringing it back to where Scootaloo was still seated in her mother’s lap.

Scootaloo prodded the bundle experimentally, and it flexed under her touch. “It feels soft, what is it?” she asked.

“Open it and find out,” said Main Course. Scootaloo tore the paper off, and held up a clean new chef’s hat and apron. “You look a little silly wearing one of mine. These should be more your size.”

Scootaloo’s eyes lit up. “My very own? Thank you, Daddy!” She reached behind her and groped around for the strap on her back holding up the one she was already wearing, and after a few tries managed to untie it and let it fall to the floor.

Apple Bloom began to shriek.

“Apple Bloom? What in Equestria’s gotten into you?” asked Applejack, covering her ears. Instead of answering, Apple Bloom met Sweetie Belle’s questioning look and pointed at Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle’s eyes lit up and she started shrieking too.

“What’s the matter? Is something...” began Main Course.

He trailed off when he spotted the little picture of a black pot over a white apron that had appeared on Scootaloo’s flank.

“Is that...” started Ebby before she trailed off too.

“My mark! I got my cutie mark! Mom, Dad, look!”

Scootaloo jumped up and started running around in little circles trying to get a better view of it, before she was dogpiled by the other Crusaders. All three of them started talking over one another at once, and Main Course couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.

“That’s awesome, Scoots,” said Rainbow Dash, flying over to give her a hug too.

Scootaloo’s smile faded a bit. “It’s okay that it isn’t in flying or something like yours is, right?”

“Are you kidding? It’s better than fine. It means that you’ll be an awesome cook and an awesome flyer someday. Nopony who I’m teaching is ever gonna be less than double-awesome,” promised Rainbow Dash.

Main Course placed a foreleg over Ebby’s back as they sat there watching Scootaloo show off to all the ponies gathered around her. Then she looked up at them with a huge grin.

“Happy birthday, Scootaloo.”

-------------------------------------

Scootaloo panted for breath as she ran into the kitchen, the strings of her apron trailing behind her. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to sleep so late,” she said as she stopped to tie the garment, covered in a collage of stubborn old stains, over her back with a few quick, well-practiced motions.

Main Course just chuckled. “Relax, Scootaloo. It’s your birthday. I think it’s fine for you to sleep in a little bit.”

“Do you need help prepping anything for lunch?” she asked, glancing over the pans on the stovetop.

“Hang on. Just stop for a second and let me look at you.” He put a hoof on his daughter’s shoulder to keep her steady on the ground. If he didn’t she’d be flitting through the air around the kitchen before he could really take stock of her. What a difference the last year had made. He still remembered the young filly he’d discovered that night, eating crackers in a dark, drafty old loft. He was starting to wonder how much longer he’d even be able to call her a filly. “Who gave you permission to grow up, young lady?”

“Daaaad, stop embarrassing me,” she whined with a blush. “Mom, make him quit it.”

“Sorry, hon,” said Ebby from the other side of the kitchen. She was slowly and methodically slicing vegetables into large chunks. She walked over and gave Scootaloo a peck on the cheek. “Happy birthday.”

“You too,” replied Scootaloo. Then her attention snapped back to the stove and the onions sizzling away. “Are those for the french onion soup?”

“They are,” answered Main Course, glancing around the countertop. “Have you seen my corkscrew?”

“No need,” said Ebby. Her horn glowed and magic wrapped around the bottle of red wine sitting on the nearby table, popping the cork out. It floated past them until it hovered over the deep pan, and then upended itself as the wine poured into the onion mix with an angry hiss of escaping steam. Ebby smiled as Main Course darted his head in while she was focusing and stole a kiss.

“Perfect,” he said, and returned to stirring. The three ponies watched as the heat burned the alcohol away, leaving the translucent onion sporting a pink tinge as the only evidence it had ever been there at all.

Their attention was pulled away by a loud knocking on the front door. “I’ll get it,” said Scootaloo, trotting out through the main dining area. When she returned a minute later, there were two other mares in tow. “Dad, Grace and Aunt Silver are here.”

“Hey Main,” said Grace, giving him a quick hug as he wiped his hooves off on a dishtowel. “Thought we’d get this over with before you had to open.”

“I appreciate it. Silver, you have all the paperwork?” he asked.

“Sure do,” said Silver Scroll. She pulled a sheaf of papers from her saddlebags and laid them out over a clean patch of counter. Main took the quill she offered him. “Just sign here... and here... and here... and one more right here,” she said, as he scribbled down his name in each spot. “There we go! That was pretty painless, right? You have now been officially demoted to silent partner of the Manehattan Knoll.”

“So no complaining about what we put on the menu,” said Grace with a grin.

“Don’t tell me the new guy’s changing my menu already,” said Main Course.

“It’s our menu, not yours, thanks very much. Besides, he’s got some really cool new ideas.”

“Does he have any idea what he’s getting into? I would have thought you’d want somepony with a little more experience to help you.”

Grace shrugged. “That’s my problem now. He was the best student I taught at the academy, and a pretty hard worker. I’m willing to take a chance on him.” She looked over at Ebby, and grinned. “My, aren’t you here early for somepony who supposedly lives across town. Every time I come down here I half expect you two have picked a date to go ahead and make it official.”

“Umm... actually...” said Main Course. He glanced at Ebby and raised an eyebrow. She blushed, but then gave him a little nod. “...how clear is your schedule around midsummer?”

Grace frowned. “That’s barely two months away. Nowhere near enough time to plan a wedding.”

“It’s just that, well, depending on how a doctor’s appointment the day after tomorrow goes we might be in a bit of a hurry,” said Main Course.

Silver Scroll looked at him, confused, until a huge grin began to slowly spread across her face. “No way,” she said.

“We don’t know anything for sure,” said Ebby, “but... yeah. I’m almost positive.”

“Omigosh, Main! That’s amazing!” Grace ran over and gave him a hug, while Silver did the same to Ebby.

Scootaloo looked back and forth between the four happy ponies. “What? What’s going on?” she asked.

Ebby returned Silver’s hug, then trotted over to Main Course. “Let’s tell her together,” she said, nuzzling his cheek.

“Scootaloo,” said Main Course. He stopped and closed his eyes. For the last week, he’d been too nervous to even say it out loud. It wasn’t real yet, in a way. That was about to change. “You’re going to be a big sister soon.”

Late

LATE

"Where is she?" asked Main Course for what felt like the fiftieth time as he looked out the second-story window into the darkness of the night.

Ebby looked up at him over her book from the couch, letting her reading glasses slide down to the tip of her muzzle. "Stop pacing, dear. You're driving me to distraction." She shifted to move some of her weight off the burned patch of her coat. It still felt odd to see her out of a dress, at least outside of their bedroom, but Ebby had refused to purchase a wardrobe of maternity clothing and none of her old clothes fit her right anymore. Although her scars had drawn a few stares in the street for the first few weeks, she now wore them with pride.

"Scootaloo should have been home by now, though. I told her to be back by ten, and it's half past," said Main as he scanned the road in front of the Knoll for some sign of her.

"Ponyville is a safe place, and Scootaloo is a good girl. Trust her," said Ebby. When he didn't reply, she sighed and patted a spot next to her. Main Course grudgingly pulled himself away from the window and sat on the floor next to her. "You worry too much. She's growing up, and that's a good thing."

Main Course closed his eyes and rested his chin on the bulge in her abdomen. She stroked his mane as his concerns slowly faded into the background. "I'll feel better when I know she's home." He chuckled. "Just think, in a decade or so we're going to be sitting right here wondering exactly the same thing about our son." He rubbed his nose against Ebby's belly, prompting a little giggle. "Hear that, little guy? No making Daddy and Mommy sit up late worrying about you."

Ebby yelped. "He kicked! I don't think he likes being told what to do."

"Not even born yet and he's already rebelling, huh? Heaven help us." Main Course grinned as he wrapped his forelegs around his wife. "Thanks, I do feel better. What do I owe you for putting up with me?"

Her face became mock-serious. "I'm afraid I only accept payment in kisses, and your latest invoice is past due."

"Uh oh. Better give you two to cover the late charges."

"Make it three, just to be safe."

"You are an excellent negotiator," he said before he pressed his lips against hers for a long, deep one.

"Mmm, I learned from the best," she replied when they broke apart again.

He kissed her cheek. "Should have specified where, though," he said as he moved his face up towards her forehead.

Ebby's eyes went wide. "Main Course, don't you dare. Don't you—" her protest was cut off by the little squeak that escaped her mouth when he kissed the very tip of her horn. "You're going to pay for that."

"Totally worth it," he said with a grin. He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned as the stress headache he'd been battling all evening sent a dull throb through the back of his head.

His pain didn't escape Ebby's notice. "We should take some time off, go somewhere to give you a chance to relax. You work too hard."

"I take a day off every week," protested Main, bracing himself for the familiar, if gentle, argument.

"No, you close the Knoll one day a week. Your last 'day off' you were up at dawn and spent the whole day fixing the oven. You haven't taken a proper break since our honeymoon, and that was months ago. I'd like to visit Manehattan for a couple of days before we have a newborn to worry about. When Scootaloo was born I was stuck at home for the first two years."

"That's what you get for going and getting pregnant again, I guess," said Main Course.

Ebby gave him a mischievous grin. "I seem to recall you being somewhat involved in the process. You're not the one swollen up to the size of a blimp. You owe me."

"In my defense, you're a very pretty blimp." He braced himself a moment before she whacked him over the head with a throw pillow. "I guess it wouldn't kill me to take at least a long weekend."

Whatever Ebby was about to say in response was interrupted by a sound from behind the door to Scootaloo's room, and they both turned their heads towards it. Main Course stood up and helped Ebby slowly rise to her hooves. "Alright, we'd better talk to her. Be nice."

They opened the door and found Scootaloo half in and half out of her propped open window. Her pendant dangled over the windowsill as she looked up at them and winced. "Uh, hi Mom. Hi Dad."

"Scootaloo, you were supposed to be home almost an hour ago," said Main Course. "Where have you been?"

"Sweetie Belle's concert ran a little long, and then we went back to Rumble's house afterwards," she replied.

"And what were you doing there?"

She landed on the floor inside and shrugged. "I dunno. Stuff. Just hanging out."

"Stuff?" repeated Main Course.

"Yeah. Stuff. His parents were there. We didn't do anything bad or anything." Her tone became somewhat exasperated.

"We were just worried about you," interjected Ebby. "I'm not crazy about you trying to sneak in through the window, either. I don't ever want you to feel like you need to hide anything from us, okay?"

"I hoped you wouldn't notice. I knew I was late, and I didn't want you to ground me. I wanna go flying with Rainbow Dash this weekend before she goes back to the Wonderbolt Academy," she said. "Please can I still go?"

Main Course frowned. "You aren't grounded, at least not this time. But what made you think we wouldn't notice?"

"With the Knoll and the new foal on the way you guys have both been really busy lately. I just..." she looked away as she trailed off.

"Scootaloo? Sweetheart, what's wrong?" asked Ebby.

"Are you guys still gonna have time for me after he’s born?”

Main Course stared down at her in surprise. “Scootaloo, of course we will. We’ll make time.”

“But are you going to love him more than me because he’s your real foal and I’m just adopted?” she asked.

“There’s no ‘just’ about it, Scootaloo. You are our real daughter,” said Ebby, “and that goes for both of us.”

Main Course lifted Scootaloo up off the ground and into her bed, holding her close. “Were you really worried about that? We love you, so much. In fact that’s part of the reason we even decided to have another foal. We know you’re going to do such a wonderful job being a big sister to him.”

Scootaloo fidgeted her hooves and looked down at them. “But I don’t know how to be a good big sister. What if I mess up, or we fight?”

“Maybe you will, sometimes,” said Ebby taking her place on Scootaloo’s other side. “I didn’t know how to be a mom when I had you, but I learned. Just think about how you feel about Rainbow Dash. Wouldn’t it be neat to have somepony feel that way about you?”

Scootaloo’s jaw dropped open as the extent of the responsibility she was going to have seemed to finally dawn on her. “That’s a lot of pressure. I guess I can try, though.” She looked down at her mother’s belly and gently pressed a hoof against it. “I promise,” she said as she stared at it. “I promise I’m going to be the best big sister for you I can.”

Main Course hugged her, then covered his mouth with a foreleg to suppress a yawn. “Well, it’s late and I think it’s bedtime for all of us. Scootaloo, go get ready for bed and I’ll tuck you in.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Daddy, I’m a big filly. I’m getting too old for you to tuck me in every night.”

“You’re never too old for that,” said Main Course with a smile.

Ten minutes later, snuggled between the two parents who loved her and the little brother she’d soon meet for the very first time, Scootaloo drifted off to sleep as Main Course and Ebby sang her a gentle lullaby.